The Seventh Shipgirl
by Pyeknu
Summary: Updated version of Shipgirl Samurai and Super-ninjas, influenced by the universes of Belated Battleships and Greatest Generation. A dark warrior fights alone in the Arctic against the Abyssals, earning the feared nickname "Angry One" among the dark sea spirits. The shipgirls soon learn that the Angry One is the ultimate shipgirl samurai, the Seventh Carrier herself, Yonaga!
1. Battle of Little Diomede Island

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **South of Óstrov Vrángelja (Wrangel Island), approximately 500 kilometres northwest of Mys Dezhnjóva (Cape Dezhnjóva) at the eastern end of Siberia, Wednesday 25 May 2016, mid-morning (Tōkyō time: Two hours before breakfast)...**_

"Again, we failed, Admiral. We blunted the attack, but the nature of our opponents prevents us from destroying them."

Hearing that declaration from the commander of the Sixth Naval Air Flotilla, Captain Aoshima Susumu, the elderly gentleman currently seated at the head of the table inside the meeting room near Flag Plot could only shake his head in growing despair. "Have the Kami cursed the world with these filthy creatures?!" Admiral Fujita Hiroshi growled as he thumped a tiny fist onto the desk while the others in the room gazed on him. "With our experiences and with what we've monitored over frequencies since we got out of Sano-wan, the kantai musume can't be JUST the only beings capable of dealing with these yōma!"

The 1904 graduate of the Eta-jima Naval Academy could only shake his head in disbelief and private horror at such a vicious jest by the gods on humankind which had been inflicted on Earth in the last decade. Even if Fujita found it almost impossible to believe that humanity had been driven down so much by the so-called "Abyssals" that they had to resort to such odd magic to bring back the living kami of _Yonaga_ 's fleet mates and contemporaries from the time of the Greater East Asia War, he and the over two thousand naval warriors who manned the fifth of the Yamato-class warships and the first to be converted to an aircraft carrier had seen stranger things in the last seven decades, ever since they were imprisoned in a cove at the eastern end of Siberia by massive glaciers thanks to an earthquake, several months before _Yonaga_ would have joined the others of the Kidō Butai in Operation Z. Never mind those kami being made human _**women**_ , an outcome that thoroughly sickened the native of Nagoya since he believed a woman's place was in the home, not on the field of battle facing murderous enemies...!

Before anyone could say more, a whistle echoed. "Bridge to Admiral," a voice spoke out in American-accented Japanese.

Fujita reached over to open two-way through the small telephone unit on the table. "Fujita here. What is it, Brent-san?"

"Sir, lookouts just spotted one of the Ryūseizen near Wrangel Island. The two-stack one with the sixteen Mark 7s in the four four-gun turrets," Brent Ross answered. "She was spotted by Lieutenant Takii's patrol flight about forty kilometres south-southwest of Zvjózdnyj, moving towards the island. That was an hour ago. She faded into the fog shortly afterwards." As the others nodded on hearing that, the retired naval intelligence officer — and the only child of a distinguished veteran of the Second World War whose actions years before had forever endeared the Ross family to the crew — then added, "Right now, she seems to be at station-keeping, with all her radars and other detection gear focused on the island."

"They might believe the enemy is there, Admiral," ship's captain Ogawa Gorō then advised.

"Most likely," Fujita said. While many of _Yonaga_ 's crew had long speculated about the true origins of the mysterious super-battleships designed on Western patterns that had patrolled the oceans like grim undertakers during both world wars and fought to destroy great kaijū similar to the fictional Gojira which threatened the warring ships of both sides, only the admiral knew the truth of their origins. He had been sworn to silence by powers beyond imagination years ago when Yamamoto Isoroku let him in on that particular secret. "Tell me, Brent-san, what did Yoshiro-san say about this one's current state?"

"Warship at this...!"

Silence fell for a moment as Ross' voice faded, which made the people in the room tense. "What's happening, Brent-san?!" Lieutenant Commander Matsuhara Yoshi, Ross' best friend among _Yonaga_ 's crew and one of the many doho from America who had come back to Japan before the war to fight for the Heavenly Sovereign, then demanded.

"Yoshiro-san just reported that she just shifted to shipgirl format, Yoshi-san," Ross replied, a touch of astonishment in his voice at the idea of an actual warship doing something like _**that**_. "Looks like she's sailing in."

"Put the scout frequency on!" Fujita demanded.

"Hai!"

Crackles echoed, then a new voice called, "Iceman, this is Tora One! Can you hear me, Iceman?! Brent-san, are you there?!"

"We can hear you fine, Yoshiro-san! The admiral's listening in!" Ross called back.

"My thanks, my friend! Admiral, the Ryūseizen that we spotted an hour ago has shifted herself to kanmusu form to approach what's left of Zvjózdnyj. It appears there is a young child on the dock there! An abyssal child...!"

People perked on hearing the experienced torpedo bomber pilot's report. "Similar to the one called 'Hoppō' that Nagato-san now fosters at the Yokosuka Naval District, Lieutenant?!" combat officer Lieutenant Commander Kawamoto Masao asked.

"The very same, Commander! I...wait!"

Another pause as people listening in again tensed. "Admiral! The Ryūseizen has raised a national flag!" Torii Yoshiro declared, his voice cracking with excitement. "It's the new Canadian White Ensign! She's Canadian, Admiral! I...!"

Yet another stretch of silence. "What is it, Yoshiro-san?!" Ogawa demanded.

"She's moving to retrieve the child now, Captain. But she's put up another ensign! A black Canadian ensign defaced with a golden badge. Crossed rods in saltire in a wreath of maple leaves, the Queen's Crown at the top! I don't recognize it...!"

Fujita smiled. "The silence is broken..."

"Sir?" chief scribe Lieutenant Commander Hironaka Kenji then asked.

The old admiral nodded in reassurance. To the others in the room, it seemed as if a huge weight had just been taken off his shoulders. "I can explain about our Canadian friends now that they've done that, Kenji-san. As our Western friends would call it, a Fidelius charm kept my silence until now." As the eyes of all in the room again fixed on him, he took a deep breath. "As you'll all know, my ancestors possessed the gift of magic though I was not blessed by the Kami to use that power when I was born. I've long briefed you on our hidden magical brethren and the great battles that rocked Europe and Asia during the Second Sino-Japanese War as led by our own Supreme General of Magic Yomigawa Tsukiko and her ally Gellert Grindelwald to forever wreck the tyranny of the so-called 'international confederation of wizards' on all mankind and magical beings alike."

As the others nodded, he added, "The Ryūseizen were constructed by one of the greatest naval warriors I've ever had the privilege to meet, one even Fleet Admiral Tōgō himself held with great respect." As the others in the room gasped, he nodded to _Yonaga_ 's northeast. "That vessel rescuing that child kami is Her Majesty's Canadian Ship _Odyssey_ , second of the Argo-class battleships, which was planned to be launched around the time our friends carried out Operation Z in 1941. The name-ship was the one who rescued a third of H.M.S. _Hood_ 's crew and half of battleship _Bismarck_ 's crew during the Rheinübung operation some months before our entrapment in Sano-wan. By international treaty — a treaty by which Taishō Tennō agreed to honour at the personal suggestion of Marshal Yomigawa's honoured predecessor Marshal Takemitsu Kyōsuke in 1914 — _Odyssey_ and her sisters are neutral during times of conflict in the normal world, but stand ready to protect us all from the kaijū that always seems to emerge because of such mass bloodshed on the high seas. The first commander of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron and the man who designed the first vessels of the squadron with Fleet Admiral Tōgō's suggestions, Her Majesty's Canadian Ships _Sunbeam_ and _Sundown_ , was Admiral William Harlan. Admiral Harlan always vowed that those who were left to the 'mercy'..." — here, one could coat the decks of _Yonaga_ with his scorn — "...of those kaijū would be saved by his crews if chance so welcomed it. And, no doubt, they are saving seamen from their yōma cousins we fight now!"

People exchanged looks, then Matsuhara screamed out, " _ **BANZAI HARLAN!**_ "

The others all leapt to their feet. " _ **BANZAI HARLAN!**_ "

« _ **Actually, I'm not called 'Odyssey'.**_ »

Gasps filled the room as that soft voice echoed in people's heads. "Who...?!" Ogawa demanded as eyes darted around.

An amused titter responded. « _ **Yonaga was willing to allow me to speak to you this way while I'm busy with Vrángelja now**_ ,» that lovely woman's voice came back as a wave of pure peace flooded the room. To Fujita's sharp ears, the voice had a curious mixture of accents, part eastern Québec...and part eastern _**Texas**_ of all places! « _ **I would have been named 'Odyssey' save for the sacrifice of a very brave man when my sister's crew saved Bismarck's from one of the sea leviathans that wanted to turn those poor souls into a mid-morning snack!**_ » As the officers in the room visibly winced on hearing that, that voice added, « _ **I am the second of the Argo-class battleships, flagship of the Pacific Division of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron, Royal Canadian Navy Magical Service: Her Majesty's Canadian Ship**_ **Chennalton** _ **, pendant 49.**_ » Everyone noted she pronounced her name with the voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant "sh" as the first consonant. « _ **Admiral Fujita, I can personally assert Admiral Harlan will be quite happy to learn that**_ **you're** _ **still alive all these years.**_ »

"Chennalton-san, you are too kind to me!" Fujita said as the others in the room exchanged incredulous looks; this was the first time ever that any of the carrier's crew had actually spoke to a real kanmusu! "Tell me, are those kaijū you were constructed to fight loose on the oceans?! Is there a relation to these Abyssals we've been fighting these last five years?"

« _ **Not that we've discovered, but there's still too much unknown about them. This is the reason I'm getting Vrángelja off the island now and to safety,**_ » the living incarnation of Canada's longest battleship responded. « _ **I hope your wonderful scout pilots in those Type 97s above me are keeping an eye out for potential Abyssals!**_ »

"None will harm you or your charge, Chennalton-sama!" Takii Yoshiro then called out from the cockpit of his Nakajima B5N2.

" _ **BANZAI!**_ " many of the officers in the meeting room and the bridge — including Brent Ross, much to the private approval of Fujita and Matsuhara — screamed out in approval of the pilot's vow to protect the transformed battleship.

« _ **Then I request permission to lay alongside to allow you people the chance to meet young Vrángelja,**_ » Chennalton announced, making people gape. « _ **She wants to meet the 'nice men' who give the 'Angry One' the power to fight on, even in the face of the challenges our abyssal 'friends' love to give humanity as a whole, magical and normal alike.**_ »

Blushes instantly crossed the faces of many of the men in the room at such a compliment. "Please lay alongside us when you can, Chennalton-san," Fujita then bade. "We've long wondered what's driven these beings to do what they've done. If young Vrángelja is willing to aide us as much as young Hoppō-chan and others like her have done, we'll be able to finally sweep these monsters clear of the seas and restore the peace your Queen and our Heavenly Sovereign desire across the world."

" _ **BANZAI!**_ " the officers in the room howled their support...

* * *

 _ **The Seventh Shipgirl  
**_ by Fred Herriot

C&C by Rose Ash, Té Rowan and RDMCMains.

 _Winged Hussars_ (2016), written by Joakim Brodén and Pär Sundström, produced by Peter Tägtgren. _Mississippi_ (1975), written by Werner Theunissen, produced by Eddy Hilberts. _Taps_ (1862), arranged by unknown persons at the order of MG Daniel A. Butterfield USA, lyrics composed by Horace Lorenzo Trim. _Soldiers_ (1981), written and produced by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.

Based on _Kantai Collection_ , developed by Kadokawa Games; _The Seventh Carrier_ , created by Peter Albano; _Mahō Sensei Negima_ , created by Akamatsu Ken; _Katekyō Hitman Reborn_ , created by Amano Akira; _Azumanga Daiō_ , created by Azuma Kiyohiko; _Alpha Flight_ , created by John Byrne; _Men In Black_ , created by Lowell Cunningham; _Colourful Kiss_ , created by Giga; _Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter_ , written by Seth Grahame-Smith; _Kidō Keisatsu Patlabor_ , created by Headgear; _The Bionic Woman_ , created by Kenneth Johnston; _Hōkago Ren'ai Club_ , created by Libido; the _Indiana Jones_ series, created by George Lucas; _Sentimental Graffiti_ , created by NEC Interchannel; _Sweet Valley High_ , created by Francine Pascal; _Harry Potter_ , written by Joanna K. Rowling; _The West Wing_ , created by Aaron Sorkin; _Urusei Yatsura_ and _Ranma 1/2_ , created by Takahashi Rumiko; the _Suzumiya Haruhi_ series, created by Tanigawa Nagaru; _The Guns of the South_ , written by Harry Turtledove; _normalman_ , created by Jim Valentino; _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ , created by Joss Whedon; _Dial "H" For Hero_ , originally created by Dave Wood and Jim Mooney, with follow-on stories by Marv Wolfman and Carmine Infantino, based on characters created by multiple fans; _Stargate SG-1_ , created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner; and _Doki Doki Pretty League_ , created by XING.

Including characters and situations from _Belated Battleships_ , created by the JMPer; _Greatest Generation_ , created by sasahara17; _Harry Potter and the Shipgirls_ , created by Harry Leferts; _Gaijin Teitoku_ , written by IJNFleetadmiral; _Misuteru_ , created by Brian Drozd; _Urusei Yatsura: The Senior Year_ , created by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot; and _Phoenix From the Ashes,_ _Magic and Canada_ and _The End of the Circus_ , created by Fred Herriot.

* * *

 _ **On the Arctic shore of Siberia, Friday 19 May 2017, mid-morning...**_

"They were stuck here for HOW long, Onē-san?!"

"Well over seventy years," the twenty-something woman with the dark shaggy hair and the almost black eyes mused as she used her ki senses to reach out and scan what still remained of a certain aircraft carrier's long entrapment in this protected cove close to the now-deserted village of Ènurmino, about a hundred kilometres northwest of the eastern tip of Siberia, Cape Dezhnjóva. "An earthquake entrapped them in September of 1941. A second one around late November of 1984 enforced the trap. But the mesonium deposits in the bay kept the ship intact and the crew young. When the Abyssals came to destroy them five years ago, they were able to finally break free and beat them back." Here, Moroboshi Negako smirked as she straightened herself, automatically doing an isometric kata to allow the blood flows in her legs to restore to normalcy.

"And this ship is this 'angry one' the Abyssals are scared of, right?" Moroboshi Ataru then asked as he followed his adopted sister — and for ten years, his mental "house guest" in the subconscious elements of his brain — towards the inner end of the half-kilometre cove surrounded on all sides by hundred-metre escarpments topped with nearly fifty metres of glacial ice. "The missing sister of the Yamato-class? Yasuko-san's, Mutsuko-san's, Shimizu-chan's and Izumi-chan's sister?"

"The same."

"You sure it's the same ship Ō'oji-chan served on?"

"Positive. My interview of Miura Daisuke proved that."

Ataru tried not to smirk. Colonel Miura Daisuke was one of the last surviving members of the infamous Unit 731, the biological warfare research centre of the Imperial Army before and during the Second World War. Having nearly killed himself thanks to helping the Americans understand what he did sometime after he had been allowed to escape the Tōkyō war crimes trials, Miura had been imprisoned in a sanitarium until he passed away over a decade ago. Before he did, Negako — then resident in the subconscious mind of Ataru's paternal second cousin once removed, Hana Hirosuke — was able to extract from Miura all the information concerning the fifth of the Yamato-class warships, Tennō Heika Gunkan _Yonaga_ , the Seventh Carrier of Operation Z. The ship where Ataru's paternal granduncle, Lieutenant Moroboshi Kyōsuke, had served as junior navigation officer on until _Yonaga_ disappeared in the summer of 1941, some months before the start of the Greater East Asia War.

No doubt, Negako's "interview" of the murdering racist bastard hastened his final demise.

Shaking his head as he tried not to allow the darker side of his very soul to surge up once more from the blackest pits of his own heart and take control over him as it had done several times over the last year in his personal timeline, the Terran "tag race" champion who had "saved" Earth from invasion by the Urusians a year before (in real time) could only sigh as he took another casual look around Sano Bay. Named after Miura's co-worker Colonel Sano Akira, the cove had been a perfect place to place the modified Yamato-class warship that had been rebuilt into the perfect floating airfield for a whole _**naval air flotilla**_ of a hundred and fifty strike planes. Extended to a total length of 320 metres with a flight deck width of 46 metres at the widest point, _Yonaga_ tipped the scales at over 85,000 tonnes displacement with a full war load, most of that being consumed in layers of armour protection that even outstripped that of her battleship sisters _Yamato_ , _Musashi_ and the never-completed _Izumi_ (once only known as Warship No. 111), to say anything that of _Yonaga_ 's own sister aircraft carrier _Shinano_.

"So what is Yoiko-san now, Onē-san? Ship or shipgirl?" Ataru wondered.

Negako tried not to smile on hearing that girl's name applied to _Yonaga_. Thanks ironically to the attitudes towards women that she had deliberately fostered inside her last host over a decade, Ataru had written an anonymous letter to the _Yomiuri Shinbun_ three years ago decrying how much the commanders of the world's shipgirl forces were treating the beautiful arahitogami who were now the primary defenders of humanity against the monsters of the Abyss. Treating them as nothing more than mere _**weapons**_ against such a foe...while totally forgetting the fact that they were now effectively human women with all the abilities that human women had been blessed with at first. Along with that — and keeping such totally hidden from Ataru's parents Muchi and Kinshō — the last host of "Imperial Special Agent #49" had devised human names for all the kanmusu of the world, then secretly sent those names out to the beautiful angels of the seas to have available for them to use when they finally retired from service and moved on to live their rest of their hopefully long lives as they hadn't done as warships.

For the five Yamato-class ships built by Japan, Ataru had chosen these names:

 _Yamato_ was Itō Yasuko.

 _Musashi_ was Itō Mutsuko.

 _Shinano_ was Itō Shimizu.

 _Izumi_ — who was never named before the order for Warship No. 111 was cancelled — was Itō Izumi.

And the just-revealed _Yonaga_ was Itō Yoiko.

In the wake of his returning back from a year's sojourn in deep space — in his own personal timeline, which began when he had been fired back in time by a three millennia-old spirit dragon from the planet Noukiios after he had been saved from being forced to marry his "wife" at the Onishuto Cathedral on Uru to avoid marrying his other would-be "fiancée", the sixty-fourth Queen of the Rose Kingdom of Elle — Ataru had learned through Negako that the shipgirls, while having not learned who their "hidden fan" truthfully was, used the human names in private or with those people they trusted such as Rear Admirals Gotō Kiichi and John Richardson, the joint commanders of all shipgirl forces currently based in Japan.

Given the wonderful news some months ago of what happened to battleship Mutsu — to Ataru, Yamamoto Chiyoko; soon to be Lieutenant Commander Chiyoko Richardson of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force — it was only right and proper.

"Wait...!"

Ataru's head snapped around. "What is it?"

Negako was now gazing northeast towards the Chukótskoe Sea and the tip of the Lisburne Peninsula of Alaska well over 250 kilometres away. "Yoiko is currently heading towards the Bering Strait. It appears there is a new Abyssal shore installation establishing herself on Little Diomede Island, no doubt to find some way of choking off transport through the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage to avoid longer deployments orbiting south of Eurasia and North America demand."

"Is she alone?" Ataru demanded. Much that he still found it quite hard to focus fully on the many military issues that governed the lives of the shipgirls, the fact that his granduncle's ship was now about to engage the enemy...!

"No. Patricia Chennalton is shadowing her now." Her eyebrow then twitched. "It appears that Patricia helped Yoiko become a proper kantai musume six months ago. Her crew are now magically transformed into faeries."

That made him cringe. "You mean like...?"

"Exactly as the former crews of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron allowed themselves to become five years ago."

Hearing that made Ataru's heart nearly break as something deep inside him surged up from his heart, that reflected by the fact that his left eye was now glowing with a deep crimson fire. " **Yoiko won't fight alone, On** **ē** **-san** ," he declared in a voice that boomed with a noticeable metallic echo, as if he was speaking through a steel tunnel. " **Excuse me.** "

With that, he raced off to the nearby hovercycle they had used to travel here from Japan. Watching her last host/adopted brother go, Negako could only shake her head. "You need to learn to better master that side of you, Ataru."

* * *

 _ **In the Bering Sea, two hundred kilometres south of Little Diomede Island (local time: Thursday 18 May, an hour after lunch)...**_

"Aircraft just spotted the installation princess!"

"Got it!" New Jersey said with a cold smile as she urged her engineers to push her turbines to the limits and let her go all flank out to close in and destroy the enemy. "Any sign of surface or sub-surface forces, Anna?"

"Negative, Kathy-san!" Akagi replied from the battleship's starboard beam after hearing a report from a flight of Nakajima B6N Tenzan bombers now soaring over the eastern side of the straight to get a detailed look at the closest piece of American territory to Russian territory. As they were alone and the people monitoring this from Yokosuka near Tōkyō, Sasebo near Fukuoka and Kitsap near Seattle were aware of the shipgirls' human names, the converted Amagi-class battlecruiser addressed the second of the Iowa-class fast battleships by the intimate form of the middle part of her human name Anne Katharine Hyde, just as New Jersey called the carrier by her human name Fujita Anna. "There is a combat air patrol, but Kei and I could deal with that." Here, she indicated Kaga (Fujita Kei), who was being shadowed by Iowa (Minerva Abigail "Gabby" Lewis) as this ad hoc grouping of veterans from the Kidō Butai and Task Force 34 moved to close on Little Diomede.

The namesake of the Garden State nodded, bangs of her strawberry blonde hair fluttering over her bridge as she scanned the calm seas while her radar reached out to pick up any returns from the little shit who DARED to invade American territory like she did. "If it's a kid, we'll coax her into switching flags," she said, earning her a nod from the lead ship of Carrier Division One. "Hopefully, there will be no need for the Dragon Killers to put it down with a meson version of a Katie."

That made the line of fast battleships and carriers wince on hearing that dark observation. "That would be dishonourable, even for these creatures," Kaga snarled as she readied her daikyū. "Let us pray it is a child..."

"No such luck," Akagi then warned after getting a message from her scouts.

The other shipgirls' shoulders slumped. "Shit!" Iowa spat out as her blonde hair whipped like a demon around her head.

«Must have been transplanted from elsewhere,» a voice then echoed over secure communications from the support force over two hundred kilometres to the south of the main attack line. «There was no real battle fought over Little Diomede during World War Two. The Coast Guard was able to evacuate the civilians from Ingaliq just prior to when the Abyssals closed the strait before your fiancée helped call you back to duty, Dragon.» As Jersey blushed and the others in the attacking line giggled on hearing Enterprise address the man the battleship deeply loved, Professor Arthur Crowning, by that title, the former naval intelligence officer and the first true American shipgirl to be summoned added, «How big is the CAP, Anna? Need some help?»

"No, Yvonne-san, we can handle this," Akagi stated as the others of the Kidō Butai prepared their daikyū to launch a first waive. "Have Roberta-san or any of the others sensed out any submarines close to us? Given the seas here..."

«Negatory on sub contacts via CANTASS or SOSUS, Anna-san,» came the curt voice of destroyer Haida, who was leading a small division of Canadian shipgirls up through the strait to scan the Dominion's Arctic islands to ensure none of the Abyssals had set up new bases well away from patrols by the native hunters who also wore the red vests of the Canadian Rangers. «The idiots should've done something to blank themselves out from SOSUS. All's quiet there.»

"Let's not call in Master Chief Murphy, T-Bird!" Iowa called back. "You girls ready?!" she called out to the other battleships.

"Always ready to unleash burning love, you foolish Yank!" Kongō asserted from Zuikaku's starboard side, her turrets splaying.

Iowa laughed as Kongō's sisters chimed their affirmatives. "Ready to kick ass and take names, Dragon?" she asked her sister.

"Age before beauty, Stick?"

That made the namesake of the Hawkeye State jolt. "Why, you ass...!"

"WAIT!"

Heads snapped over to Akagi. "What is it, Anna-san?!" Zuikaku called out.

"Recon flight just spotted a massive wave of aircraft approaching the target from the northwest, Suzue-san!" the second-oldest of Japan's carriers called out. "All Japanese planes: A6M2s, D3A1s and B5N2s! Over a HUNDRED of them...!"

"We don't have carriers up here!" Hiryū exclaimed. "Who'd be flying all that old stuff?! We've got our Kai-ni upgrades...!"

The others nodded. "Any sign of markings, Anna-san?" Kaga asked.

"Checking now, Kei-chan," Akagi affirmed as she listened to the excited chatter from her scouts, ignoring her oldest friend's blush at such an intimate form of address. "We should have sent submarines up here to scout ahead...!"

She stopped as a stream of scrambled messages came into her, the information being decoded immediately in her secure communications room to be relayed to her inner mind. A second later, her face turned almost white as a look of total disbelief crossed her face, that mixed with what appeared to be delight and even hope. That was instantly picked up on by her old mission mates from Operation Z and the other ships escorting them. "Anna-san, what is it?! Who's here?!" Sōryū demanded.

Shaking her head, Akagi then blinked as her eyes teared. "An old friend, Sei-san," she hissed out. "A friend that missed out on everything...yet appears quite ready to dive into it even if she hasn't come back through Eta-jima or Sasebo..."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **Yonaga**_...?!" Hiryū croaked.

"Hai...!"

"Who or what is Yonaga?" Kirishima demanded from beside Shōkaku.

"Warship No. 797, fifth of the Yamato-class...even if she was the first actually 'commissioned', Isabel-san," Akagi answered before a wry grin crossed her face. "So to speak. She was even more modified than Shizuka-chan was! Made as long as any of the Americans' Forrestal-class carriers; she could carry a whole air flotilla on her with room to spare!" As the two American battleships gaped on hearing that, Akagi smirked. "The man behind the construction of _Yonaga_ — that's her name — was mine and Kei-chan's old division commander, Admiral Fujita Hiroshi. He was one of the main planners behind Operation Z even if his name was wiped out from the history books because of what was decided concerning _Yonaga_."

"How was she made to disappear, Anna-san?" Haruna asked from Sōryū's starboard.

"Unit 731, Harumi-san."

All the Japanese shipgirls present winced on hearing the name of THAT particular Imperial Army unit while the two Americans among them shook their head. "Yeah, you guys sure loved to keep your secrets," Jersey wryly noted as her own radar picked up the massive alpha strike now closing in on Little Diomede. "Looks like our princess there just woke up to the Big Yama's dropping the hammer on her! You think you can swing your Jills over to scan where our missing flattop is?!"

"Trying to signal her, Kathy-san," Akagi called out before she concentrated. «Yonaga, this is Akagi!» she transmitted on the special frequency that Yamamoto Isoroku had given to Nagumo Chūichi before the Kidō Butai deployed from Hitokappu Bay off what today was known as Iturúp to communicate to Fujita Hiroshi aboard _Yonaga_ when the seventh carrier of Operation Z joined her mission mates somewhere close to Midway Island on the voyage to launch the Greater East Asia War. «Yonaga, this is Akagi! Please respond! My scouts just picked up your attack force closing in on Little Diomede! Do you need assistance?»

Silence.

"Is she asleep?" Iowa wondered.

More silence.

"She was under EMCON before the signal to climb Mount Niitaka was to be sent out from Navy HQ, Gabby," Jersey then warned. "She might be still following those orders. If she's been isolated all this time, she's no different..."

"Than any of the people who refused to heed Shōwa Tennō's call to surrender in 1945," Tenryū affirmed from the head of the formation, guiding the members of her "kindergarten" to act as forward screen for the whole force.

Still more silence.

"Yonaga-san...!" Kaga hissed out.

Then...

 _When I die,  
_ _Above my grave  
_ _The fair bird flies.  
_ _And with her,  
_ _I will soar to Infinity._

All the destroyers looked ready to cry after hearing that lovely poem echo over the radio waves, even the ever-stoic Hibiki. "That's so beautiful!" Fubuki said as she instantly braced herself for whatever might come next.

"Was that Yonaga-sempai?" Mutsuki wondered as her gunners loaded rounds into her four 12.7 centimetre 40 calibre Type 89 naval guns in preparation to defend the carriers and battleships in case the installation princess got off a strike.

"The attack's going in!" Akagi called out...

* * *

 _ **Little Diomede Island...**_

The Strait Princess howled in nearly-helpless outrage as she watched the massive swarms of bombers and fighters moving to blanket the sky above her head, making it an effective no-go zone for her own defensive fighter force. As her own fighters leapt off the runways to get into the air, the first of FORTY-FIVE Aichi D3A1s peeled over into power dives, coming down in squadrons of nine to saturate bomb her with their loads. The escorting group of an equal amount of Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero-sens split into two formations, a top cover of two squadrons maintaining over-watch while the other three dived in to chase the enemy fighters away from the bombers. At the same time, an equal amount of Nakajima B5N1 torpedo bombers were coming in at nearly wave-top level with their own ordnance to take out the small amount of enemy ships that were there.

« _ **CURSE YOU, ANGRY ONE! YOU WILL NOT WIN!**_ »

« _ **My! You flatter me with that title, little y**_ _ **ōma!**_ »

Another screech escaped the Abyssal as several of her fighters peeled off to the northwest, they being chased by a squadron of A6M2s before they could attack the dark kami in human form now closing the island. « _ **WHY DO YOU FIGHT, YONAGA?! WHY DO YOU CARE FOR THE HUMANS THAT ABANDONED YOU?! THAT ABANDONED YOUR CREW TO**_ **FREEZE** _ **IN SIBERIA FOR SEVEN DECADES?! WHY FIGHT?!**_ » An insane cackle then escaped her as bombs came down to crater her runways, causing several of her air wing to explode before they could get aloft. « _ **ALL BECAUSE YOUR CREW SAW THEMSELVES AS MODERN DAY SAMURAI?! BECAUSE THEY**_ **NEVER** _ **CONTEMPLATED LAYING DOWN THEIR ARMS IN 1945 WHEN YOUR HEAVENLY SOVEREIGN COMMANDED IT AFTER THE ATOM BOMBS BURNED HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI?! BECAUSE THEY — NO, BECAUSE**_ **YOU** _ **! — BETRAYED YOUR OATH OF LOYALTY DUE TO**_ **STUPIDITY** _ **?!**_ »

« _ **HOW DARE YOU?!**_ » came a outraged shriek from the south, making the installation spin her human head towards the Bering Sea. « _ **YOU DARE INSULT YONAGA-SAN AFTER ALL SHE'S BEEN THROUGH?! HOW DOES IT FEEL TO KNOW THAT ONE OF US IS SO POWERFUL, EVEN THE STRONGEST OF YOUR KIND — MUCH LESS THE SEA DRAGONS SOUGHT BY THE RY**_ _ **Ū**_ _ **SEIZEN DURING THE WARS — WOULD TREMBLE BEFORE OUR FRIEND'S TRUE MIGHT!**_ »

The princess cackled. « _ **WELCOME BACK...KEI-CHAN! SOON, YOU'LL BE...!**_ »

Explosions rocked around her as the last of the D3A1s from the seventh carrier of Operation Z straddled her, holing her legs and arms and dropping her to her knees. Two squadrons of B5N2s then streaked over her, dropping their loads to cause wounds to appear all over the creature's body. As cheers echoed from the south while Akagi continued to report the litany of damage being delivered, a strange turbine roar echoed through the skies over the Bering Strait, making the princess look up...

 _ **KK-KLONK!**_

The princess croaked as something slammed into her face with the force of a meteor, driving her against the rock wall that formed the base of the mountain which made Little Diomede Island nearly uninhabitable even to the hardy natives that once resided in Ingaliq on the west coast facing Big Diomede and Siberia beyond. As the creature bounced all over the barren stone now stripped bare of soil, the being that just dropped her landed daintily on the ground nearby, rising to his full height...which was actually just a little taller than most dreadnought battleships in shipgirl scale. Racing overhead as this humanoid thing's left eye glowed a deep crimson fire, faerie pilots from two carriers could only gape in bowel-loosening horror at such a ghastly creature having just imposed itself between them and their target. Before the ones from Yonaga could steel themselves to attack, a voice ringing with power hissed out, " **Excuse me, but only those who have earned Kei's** _ **respect**_ **and** _ **friendship**_ **can call her by that name. A mere** _ **hit'kyechtechhu**_ **...** " — hearing the scorn on saying that strange alien word made the pilots wonder if it was some weird equivalent of calling someone a burakumin — "... **like you has NO right to do that to her.** "

Snarling as she got up, the princess sent a half-dozen bombers towards this thing that would abuse her so. " _ **DIE!**_ "

Bolts of starlight lashed out from that glowing eye to vaporize the bombers before they even got close. " **Oh, did I hurt your feelings?** " the creature teased with a noticeable level of mocking as the smoke cleared, revealing a human form with half the body gone. The missing parts had been surgically replaced by dark grey cybernetics that approximated the whole right arm, the right side of the chest, the lower left arm, all the left leg, the right leg below the knee and three quarters of his face. The remainder of the body was sheathed in a black form-fitting jumpsuit, that embossed with the symbol of a golden ascending phoenix on his chest displaying well-muscled pectorals, which melted into dark grey gunmetal once it passed his breastbone. " **I do apologize. The bandits I killed at Morningstar Plain a year ago desensitized me to the feelings of** _ **monsters..**_ **.** "

* * *

 _ **Approaching from the south...**_

"Um...Onē-sama! Doesn't he sound familiar?"

As Akagi tried not to mindlessly babble at the thought of encountering something that seemed to leap straight out of _The Terminator_ — she was being comforted by Kaga as Iowa and New Jersey closed up just in case someone tried to bushwhack them — Kongō blinked before she gazed on Kirishima, who was escorting Hiryū. "What do you mean, Isabel?" the English-built fast battleship known more commonly to her sisters, friends and her beloved admiral as Chihaya Anne then asked.

"Don't you remember that strange broadcast out of Nishitōkyō a year ago?" the third of the Kongō-class possessing the human name Chihaya Isabel asked. "Just before the government put in those blackouts about everything there?"

Kongō blinked before she gaped. "The supposed alien invasion...!"

"Even if the voice has changed thanks to what happened to his face, that is clearly _**Moroboshi Ataru**_ , Onē-sama!" Kirishima asserted. Akagi had projected pictures of the creature attacking the Strait Princess to the others through data links before the sheer scale of the wounds the poor man had suffered — and what had been done to keep him alive — just overwhelmed her.

Even if shipgirls were well experienced with death, something like THAT...!

« _ **Kirishima-san, are you sure?**_ »

People perked. "Yonaga-sempai?!" Fubuki called out.

"I don't understand, Yonaga-san...!" Kirishima breathed.

« _ **Is he Moroboshi Ataru?**_ »

The third of the Kongō-class battleships blinked before she ran the images Akagi had transmitted from her pilots through her mind once more. Seeing the general body build, the shape of the skull, the full head of shaggy dark brown hair, the one good brown eye on the right side of the face, the only part of his features which was still human...! "It's him, Yonaga-san."

« _ **I see...**_ »

"Yonaga-san, what are you DOING?!" Kaga demanded on sensing the pained tones in her old mission mate's voice.

« _ **The only proper thing, Kaga-san. To see the grandnephew of my junior navigation officer MUTILATED like that...!**_ » a near sob answered from the oncoming carrier, which New Jersey and Iowa could now detect approaching the entrance to the strait several hundred kilometres away. « _ **To think of how badly wounded his karma must be! Standing on guard against alien y**_ _ **ōma, then to see him become THAT! My crew WEEP at such a sight!**_ » As the others in the formation exchanged looks, the hissing sound of a well-oiled katana being drawn from its scabbard then echoed over the communications links. « _ **NO! By all the Kami, NO! I will not stand by and allow him to suffer like this! He is of the blood of my crew...!**_ »

A strange yet clearly amused man's laughter echoed over the air, that sounding ominously like the sound of a machine gun going off at full rock and roll speed. " **Forgive me for saying this, Yoiko...but to quote Alex Hopper when he took command of Abigail's and Katharine's sister Marguerite to deal with those fool aliens in that one movie some years ago...** "

"Which was a lousy movie," Jersey quipped as she rolled her eyes heavenward.

"Embarrassed the shit out of Mo...!" Iowa wryly added.

" **...I'm going to die...** "

That statement was accompanied by the sound of the Strait Princess screaming in mortal agony as Akagi suddenly looked like she was about to throw up from the images that were being transmitted to her from her reconnaissance pilots.

" **...you're going to die...** "

As the leader of Carrier Division One nearly collapsed to her knees retching from the sight — transmitted from her pilots — of that transformed man RIPPING OFF the princess' arm like he was Superman dismembering Darkseid...!

" **...we're all going to die...** "

A ghastly wailing noise then echoed through the air from Little Diomede, making Inazuma cry in fear as Hibiki shook her head, drawing out a flask of handy vódka from her skirt pocket to fire down a shot and steel herself from what was coming...

" **...but except for this thing...** "

Silence fell.

" **...just not today.** "

Then...

" _ **KONT**_ _ **Ō**_ _ **!**_ "

A titanic explosion of energy then fired up from the west side of the island in the near distance, causing all the shipgirls to gasp as the creature's death-scream boomed through the air...before blissful silence fell.

Akagi blinked as the report came from her scouts came of that being using some sort of ENERGY SWORD to hack off the head of the princess, killing it before it could try to reconstitute herself, then she barked, " _ **ALL AHEAD FLANK!**_ "

The others jolted, before their engineers forced their turbines to full speed, making them charge ahead for Little Diomede...

* * *

 _ **Little Diomede Island, over three hours later...**_

"Whoa...!" Kongō breathed out.

As the Akatsuki sisters all came ashore and dispersed their rigging before they scanned around the wreckage, the battleships and carriers stood off at several dozen metres to take in all the damage unleashed by Yonaga's air group. There was no sign of the Strait Princess whatsoever. Nor was there any sign of the man who had supposedly come in out of nowhere to destroy the creature; the fog that was a perennial issue with weather in this part of the world had once more closed in over the Bering Strait. "Damn!" New Jersey breathed out. "If Big Yama was with you guys in 1941, this could have been Pearl."

"Perhaps keeping her away from it all was the Kami's expressing their disapproval of the whole sick venture, Katharine-san," Kaga stated as she looked around; she had gladly taken in Akagi's reconnaissance flight and launched her own scouts to scour the area to ensure no enemy reinforcements came along to try to take the island back and block the Bering Strait again...

"Found him!"

Heads snapped over as the fastest destroyer in Japan raced over to join them. "Where is he, Zekamashi?!" Kongō demanded.

Shimakaze jolted. " _ **STOP CALLING ME 'ZEKAMASHI', YOU DUMB BRIT!**_ " the blonde shipgirl looking to be just at the cusp of puberty snapped. At her feet, the three "Rensōhō" gun mounts familiars squealed in echo of their mother ship's outrage. "You always keep doing that! You're just as bad as that slow standard that's always on me because of my...AWWWK!"

Everyone's heads snapped around...

...then they gaped on seeing the incredibly tall shipgirl — at least a half-head taller than Iowa and New Jersey, who were two of the tallest shipgirls alive! — now standing in the water behind Shimakaze, having yanked the experimental fast destroyer by the back of her sleeveless seifuku top right out of the water, a look of scandalized outrage on her severe, weather-beaten face. "Yonaga-sempai...!" Fubuki then gasped in wide-eyed awe on seeing the Seventh Carrier of Operation Z in full battle rigging, looking not the least bit exhausted after she had launched a massive air strike on the installation princess that had taken over Little Diomede Island in hopes of choking off all trade movement around the northern coasts of Eurasia and North America.

As the other shipgirls took in Yonaga's features, Shimakaze moaned, "Hey, you big bully! Put me down! You're worse than...!"

" _ **SILENCE!**_ "

What little the destroyer wore was nearly blasted off by the carrier's drill petty officer-like shriek. As the other destroyers gave their friend worried looks, the two Americans gazed on the other. "Late Meiji era, Dragon," Iowa whispered to New Jersey.

"Seems to me that Ari's getting a new friend soon, Stick...!" the latter quietly advised.

Silence fell as people took in all the incredible features of the fifth of the Yamato-class warships. Everyone was quick to realize that Yonaga still possessed all the great curves in the body that marked she had been a battleship before being rebuilt as a carrier. Her face was angular and stern with worn features, marking the years she had been clearly trapped wherever she had been. Her eyes were the stormy grey of a hurricane and her silver-tinged, raven black hair was tied in a simply ponytail at the neck, extending to her waist. She was dressed in a kyūdō-ka's kimono top, coloured dark green and covered by a kendō-ka's black dō that shielded her chest and abdomen. In lieu of the skirts and thigh-high socks her mission mates had, Yonaga wore a black umanori hakama that reached down to a pair of red socks covered by zōri with ship's hulls under the soles, plus rudders and twin propeller shafts. Over her groin was a kendō-ka's tare shaped like the aft end of her flight deck, black with landing stripes, a white katakana **ヨ** over her right hip. She also bore kusari sheathing that covered the rest of her hips. She had sode covering her shoulders and deltoid muscles, kote tucked under her kimono sleeves to brace her lower arms and suneate under her hakama leggings to protect her lower legs; seeing the armour, the others wondered what sort of protective armour she possessed as a warship. To mark she was Yamato-class, the dark grey bow-like gorget with the Imperial Chrysanthemum that Yamato and her sisters all proudly wore protected this shipgirl's neck, the gold flower shining brightly.

Yonaga's rigging included a large rectangular flight deck with her identification markings and national insignia at both ends, that now hanging by a strap around her shoulder. Her superstructure with its outward-tilting funnel was fused to her back, that laced to a quiver now filled with arrows. A kyūdō-ka's yotsugake covering her right hand. Like the others of the Kidō Butai, she made use of a hassun-nobi daikyū to launch her aircraft. However, her defensive armament was quite modern: Twenty OTO Melera Mark 75 76 millimetre rapid-fire guns, a hundred Alliant Techsystems M242 Mark 38 Mod 3 Bushmaster II 30 millimetre chain guns, six Raytheon Phalanx CIWS systems firing M61 Vulcan 20 millimetre rotary cannons and four Mark 29 eight-cell box launchers for the Raytheon RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile system; all the weapons were on sponsons wedged to the exposed armour plates on her arms and legs. Noting that, everyone was quick to see the metallic hairband around the woman's forehead etched with her name in kanji — **代永** — with small bridge wings sticking out over her ears, they clearly displaying the hexagonal sensor pads for the AN/SPY-1 phased array radar, the key defensive component of the Aegis Combat System once fitted on modern American destroyers and cruisers. Seeing that made both Iowa and New Jersey gape; somehow, this old warrior from World War Two had got the chance to modernize herself in ways no shipgirl to date had.

To top it all off, a beautiful samurai's daishō was lashed to her left hip.

"So _**cool**_...!" Fubuki gushed on seeing such a well-armed carrier.

"A real eleph-...!" Here, Akatsuki caught herself. "Elegant lady!"

That made Yonaga blink in confusion. "'Elegant lady'?"

Tenryū laughed. "Akatsuki here always wants to make people see her as a lady," the light cruiser explained as she gazed fondly on the most childish of her core "kindergarten" before she sailed herself over to lean closer to the carrier and whisper, "She's always trying to make herself more mature than she really is these days, Yonaga-san."

The carrier took that in, then she sighed. "If what I've heard ever since I escaped Sano-wan five years ago about what operations have been like since you were summoned back to duty at Eta-jima and Sasebo...and Kitsap as well..." — here, she focused on the American battleships that had escorted her old mission mates to this place — "...the lack of serious discipline among all the kanmusu is hampering things. If this particular yōma I just destroyed is typical of these Abyssals...!"

"We know that, old friend," Kaga said as the others came over to join her.

Yonaga sighed as she lowered Shimakaze to the water. "You need to dress to mark your station, Shimakaze-san," the carrier then scolded as the three animated turrets that always accompanied the fast destroyer moved to attend her.

The younger-looking shipgirl blinked, then she sighed. "Well, much that I don't mind looking like this, if I could get one of those neat skinsuits the Canadians always wear on their hulls when they go out to sea..."

"That would look a lot better, Shimakaze-san," Fubuki noted. "Arizona-sempai wouldn't be bothered so much about it."

Yonaga blinked. "Arizona-san has returned?!"

"Her presence isn't advertised that much," New Jersey noted. "She came back to duty at Sasebo in her _**commissioning rigging**_! From _**1916**_ , for Christ's sake! No one's been able to figure out how to get her gear upgraded!"

"Sempai's coming now with the backup force, Yonaga-sempai," Fubuki immediately reported. "They'll be here in four hours."

"She should have stayed at Sasebo!" Kaga hissed out, her eyes tearing.

"To deny her the right to perform her duties is wrong, Kaga-san!" Yonaga snapped.

"To see her die like she did in 1941 is even worse, Yonaga-san!"

That made the larger carrier gape. "It was a legitimate attack...!"

"Launched BEFORE the proper declaration of war was made!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

Yonaga was now red with outrage. " _ **WHAT?!**_ "

"It's true, Sempai!" Fubuki cut in. As the carrier focused on her, the destroyer added, "It was no fault of Yamamoto-gensui or Nagumo-taishō! Some stupid clerk at the embassy in Washington couldn't decode the communiqué that declared diplomatic relations were broken fast enough! By the time it was handed to Hull-chōkan, the attack had already been executed!"

Hearing that made Yonaga hiss. "Sacred Buddha! No wonder you Americans saw that battle as a sneak attack!" she snarled as she gazed at Iowa and New Jersey. "That was something not even my admiral would have approved of...!"

The two fast battleships smiled. "We're still trying to talk these two here away from slitting their bellies open over Ari's wreck when it's all over with!" Iowa added as she thumbed Akagi and Kaga, which made the destroyers pale in horror.

"We have a right to do that, Abigail-san!" Kaga snapped.

"Oi!" the namesake of the Hawkeye State snapped as she glared at the other shipgirl. "When is it enough, Kei?! When we're all dead and in Yasukuni or Valhalla or wherever?!" She crossed her arms. "Yeah, Sonia's still wallowing in the guilt she felt before so many of her crew died when that bomb hit her! Don't get me started about Maggie's problems! But we don't need to compound it, especially with the little cockroaches combing the seas like they've done over the years! We need you guys!"

A shrill whistle echoed over the air as the sounds of pistons tickled the shipgirls' ears. " **Abigail, please** ," a metal-tinged man's voice called out from the direction of the shore, making the shipgirls look over. Sadly, the fog that often permeated this part of the world was too thick for their optics to focus on the speaker. " **Kei has her right to her opinions, just as you do. Both the Heavenly Sovereign and President Bartlet desire all of you to work together as one dealing with the** _ **hit'kyechtechhu**_ **. Even if some from Japan would see this as drinking gall because one's honour has been blemished, the** _ **hit'kyechtechhu**_ **won't allow you to settle things out as you would want. Can we stow this, PLEASE? The girls don't like this talk!** "

The capital ships blinked before they gazed on the destroyers, all of whom had wary looks on their faces, even Hibiki. Seeing that made Iowa and Kaga blush. "My apologizes, my friends," the carrier said. "We forget ourselves at times."

"Yeah! Sorry about that, guys!" the battleship added.

Yonaga took that in, then she sighed. "The Letter..."

Everyone looked at the large carrier. "You know of the Letter?!" Hiei asked.

"Hai, Hiei-san, I do! By the time it was published, my crew had been joined by a former member of Jersey-san's ship's company who had come to the area of Sano-wan on the northern shore of Siberia in search of his long-missing father." As Jersey perked on hearing that, Yonaga added, "His father was a former member of Enterprise-san's crew from the war who died saving several of my crew from drowning when their fishing boat capsized and he dived in after them when he saw it happen from his own fishing boat." She focused on Jersey. "He was an ensign, an intelligence officer assigned as advisor to you when you were recommissioned the third time, Jersey-san: Brent Ross. He retired a lieutenant commander after his father, Theodore Ross — he was a gunner's mate first class when he served on _Enterprise_ — was reported to have vanished."

Jersey blinked as her mind suddenly sharpened, memories of her crew from the early 1980s coming back to her as clear as it was projected on a modern television screen. A bright, tall, blonde and blue-eyed ensign, one with a temper that he fought constantly to control, a limited line intelligence officer who was quite quick with both his brain and fists. Then-Ensign Brent Ross served briefly on America's most decorated battleship before he was assigned to the Pentagon, where his career clearly progressed until he finally decided to take off the uniform sometime after the turn of the millennium. "How'd he die?"

"I will explain it to you in private, Jersey-san," the carrier quietly vowed.

Hearing the strong undertone of warning in Yonaga's voice, the battleship grimly nodded. It wasn't pretty and the fifth of the Yamato-class didn't want to hurt the destroyers by speaking of it in public. "Right..."

"Hey, everyone!"

Heads jerked, then they looked to the south...

"I, MUSASHI, HAVE ARRIVED!"

"Musashi-san, please...!"

"Onē-san! Don't embarrass Onē-sama like that!"

...to see the girls in the support force now arriving, seated on tan-coloured machines that looked like Bombardier Ski-Doo snowmobiles but with a turbine jet for a central hull mated to long ski-like projections bearing anti-gravity units to allow the machines to carry girls with metaphysical weights ranging from twenty to seventy thousand tonnes with ease. As they came to a stop before the wide-eyed carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, a cultured man's voice then echoed from the one now transporting Yamato and Enterprise, " _Commander It_ _ō. Commander Swanson. I believe you can both disembark now._ "

"Arigatō, Kūkisaikuru-san!" the planned first of her class of warships said as she stepped into the water, allowing her rigging to form while the second of the Yorktown-class aircraft carriers got off on the other side, her rigging forming around her body.

As the others did the same from those strange machines now hovering perfectly like hummingbirds over the water, Yonaga was quick to see the "grey ghost" of the American Navy from World War Two made use of a modern-looking hunter's bow with dual pulling lines to launch her aircraft in lieu of the obvious Thompson M1928A1 sub-machine gun fitted under the flight deck of Saratoga, who had accompanied Nagato to this rendezvous. Also present at this meeting were what clearly was a highly-upgraded Pennsylvania, a nisei girl who was clearly a New Orleans-class heavy cruiser, a blonde woman with the rigging of a German Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser even if she bore American flags over her former wartime service's insignia, several smirking American destroyers in ripped Navy dungaree dress with 5 inch 38 calibre dual purpose guns...!

...and a woman who bore many burn scars on the exposed elements of her skin, that cloaked under an old-style greatcoat over what appeared to be a proper naval officer's uniform, though the clothes were also heavily singed.

And who was now shivering as if she had been caught naked in the Arctic.

"Oi! Arizona! Get off that thing! We've having a rendezvous!" one of the American destroyers, a red-haired girl about the same physical age as Fubuki wearing a native American headdress, called over. "You can sail, can't you?!"

"She's been a freaky prude lagwagon again, Johnson...!" Shimakaze muttered.

Pennsylvania glared in outrage at the young destroyer before she moved to her sister's side. "You okay, Sonia?"

Arizona blinked before she took a deep breath. "Battleships aren't meant to FLY, Margaret!" the namesake of the Canyon State muttered before she slipped off her air cycle and stepped into the water, her rigging forming around her.

"I bet it was a tonne of fun!" Hiei then mused as Yonaga openly winced on seeing Arizona's cage masts and range clock, both of which had been taken off when the second Pennsylvania-class was modernized in 1929-31. "Who sent these things?!"

"Imperial Special Agent #49 herself, Hiei-san," Nagato stated before she sailed over to join the large gaggle around Yonaga. "Welcome back, Yonaga-san. The admiral was quite worried about what happened to you in Operation Z."

"My admiral can only blame an earthquake that trapped me there until five years ago, Nagato-san," the carrier stated as Shinano and Izumi moved to hover close to Yonaga. "That was when the yōma came to the cove I was trapped in to kill my crew and make me one of them. Fortunately, I was able to break out and chase them away." As her youngest sisters gasped in horror on hearing that, Yonaga calmly added, "I'd like to credit the Yamato damashii of my crew that allowed us to escape those yōma that day so I could hunt them down and deny them the chance to seize the Arctic for themselves...but the truth is that there was a large diamond mesonium deposit in the cove I was trapped in. The radiation of which kept my crew young in body and repaired all the deficiencies in my systems, which made me as tough as my class' designers wanted us to be in the first place. My crew still felt themselves bound to the orders demanding I attack Pearl Harbour as per Operation Z..."

"Tennō can override those orders," the flagship of the Combined Fleet at the time of that particular operation then vowed.

The seventh carrier of Operation Z bowed her head. "If that is Tennō's desire, this unworthy warrior will obey," she declared reverently. She then perked before she gazed once more on Nagato. "Wait! _**Negako-sama**_ sent these machines...?!"

Nagato grinned. "Hai! The Promise of Bunka-gonen is fulfilled, with her last host — your junior navigation officer's grandnephew, Moroboshi Ataru — having survived it when Negako-san was finally given her own body a year ago. That required some heavenly intervention from another _**planet**_ of all things, but it happened." She then gazed knowingly into the fog. "I don't think you need to keep that armour on anymore, Ataru-kun!" she called out. "Can't you transform back?!"

" **Not with all the heavy ki that thing threw up, Reiko** ," that metallic voice called back as the sounds of engine pistons echoed through the air, part of the fog turning dark before something emerged, that making the shipgirls who had been involved in the first attack all pale in horror and Yonaga openly wince. " **It's alright, girls. Becoming this doesn't physically hurt me even if Yoiko will argue that my karma's been heavily damaged. Which, in a way, she's right about...** "

"You need to have your karma cleansed, Ataru-san!" Yonaga hissed out.

The fog finally pulled away to reveal the transformed Moroboshi Ataru. " **I am ninja, Yoiko. Not samurai. My purpose is to** _ **live**_ ," he quietly said as a look of contentment flashed from his good eye. Given that the rest of his face was a metal skull with a formed nose and piston analogues of a person's masseter muscles that helped move the lower jaw in chewing and speaking, he would have a perfect poker face should he ever confront someone. " **I'm sure** **Ō** **'oji-san understands that.** "

The seventh carrier of Operation Z stiffened before she slowly nodded in pained acceptance. "It still worries me, Ataru-san."

" **I'm grateful for your concern, Yoiko. More than you can ever understand.** "

That made her blush. "Okay, so we got rid of the Abyssal," Pennsylvania muttered. "Even better, we found a lost shipmate...!"

"Cool it off, Lieutenant!" Enterprise barked out, causing the older battleship to wince. "If Dragon and Admiral Richardson haven't already told you, knock it off with that damned attitude of yours! There's no time for that crap now...!"

"She seeks the vengeance of the Forty-Seven Rōnin, Enterprise-san. Don't be surprised."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

Pennsylvania stared in confusion at Yonaga. "'Forty-seven Rōnin'...?"

"The _Ch_ _ūshingura_."

Yonaga's head snapped over to gaze upon the martyr of Pearl Harbour. "You know of the Forty-seven Rōnin, Arizona-san?"

"I've seen the actual _Kanadehon Ch_ _ūshingura_ as performed by a beautiful troupe at the Kabuki-za in Tōkyō itself sometime after I first read that awful story," the younger of the two standard battleships present stated, which made the carrier gape in surprise. "A beautiful performance for a story that strikes me as tragic, both for Lord Takumi-no-Kami and those brave fellows who followed him into the afterlife after they dealt with that scoundrel Kira Yoshinaka." She then gazed in tired exasperation at her sister, who was now shuddering in burning outrage at the sight of her little sister sopping it up with the once-missing Japanese carrier. "My sister seeks her white whale because she was denied vengeance for my death at Pearl, Miss Yonaga," she announced as she focused once more on the carrier that could have totally wrecked Pearl Harbour had she been present that late autumn day off the north coast of O'ahu. "She was denied that chance when she formed the battle line at Surigao Strait, unable to strike down Miss Fusō and Miss Yamashiro because of friendly ships standing in her way. She went to her final demise after Crossroads..." — here, she ignored the winces from Nagato, Saratoga and Prinz Eugen on mentioning THAT — "...without gaining a chance to avenge my falling at Pearl. Since she was summoned at Sasebo, she has been...difficult."

« _ **When you have learned how to fight as a human being, Yoiko, you can indulge Margaret's zest for useless stupidity then. Sonia grows weary of trying to tame her sister's temper**_ ,» a strange women's voice echoed from the northwest, that cold and even tone making the shipgirls shudder as Pennsylvania squawked. As Saratoga and Enterprise snickered and Iowa guffawed at that statement, Moroboshi Negako added, « _ **In the meantime, join me in Sano-wan. We can arrange to have your crews' remains and this 'shrine of infinite salvation' of yours transported to a better place than this.**_ »

" **Everything okay, On** **ē-san?** " Ataru called out.

« _ **All is well, Ataru. I must commend Hiroshi and his crew for their determination to remain ready to perform their duties in this place. The advantages of this cove were quite many given the circumstances they found themselves in.**_ »

That compliment from Earth's first true artificial intelligence made Yonaga blush deeply as her old mission mates grinned...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki in Nishitōkyō (outside Tōkyō proper, west of Nerima), that moment (local time: Friday 19 May, an hour after breakfast)...**_

"Lost...! He's lost...! He's lost...!"

Hearing his daughter wail as she tried not to reach for something sharp to slit her wrists or her throat at the fact that the man she had deeply loved with all her heart and soul had been _**transformed**_ by forces beyond all comprehension into a being that would even scare most of They Who Must Never Be Named, Redet Invader could only shake his head before he gazed on the sympathetically smiling Maritime Self-Defence Force rear admiral with the cool dark eyes and the well-styled black hair seated in front of him. They were all relaxing in the living room of the Moroboshi home. "If it's anything, Captain, I can only express my condolences at what your child's going through," the commander of the Fleet Shipgirl Project now defending his homeland from strange sea devils whose existence hadn't been known to the intelligence forces of the Union of Uru even right up to the moment the Tag Race had been launched a year before at the local sports complex some blocks away stated. "Believe me, much that her feelings for Ataru-kun are quite obvious, the sheer level of changes he has undergone thanks to what happened at that cathedral outside your capital city a month ago would be hard for even most of the shipgirls I command to take."

Hearing that from Gotō Kiichi, Invader sighed before nodding in grim understanding. Being the leader of the "invasion" that was actually meant to ultimately keep other rival alien powers away from the inner core of this solar system and subjugating the incredible race of humans living on Earth to their own desires, he understood about keeping things secret. But given how incredibly powerful these "abyssal" things were...! "I can't blame anyone for what just got revealed thanks to Mr. Groom's rather remarkable mental 'house-guest' after she was allowed to live her own life, then moved to see what really prompted this damned two-way 'news blackout' between what happened in Tomobiki and what was going on in this war you're fighting."

"Don'tcha know why these creeps are doing all that?!"

That was a pale-faced Redet Ten, who was floating close to his uncle's shoulder. "Sadly, we don't, Ten-san," Ōyodo stated from her position beside her commander. "Those Abyssals we capture or who surrender to us such as Hoppō-chan are instantly cut off from their brethren as soon as any sort of 'treason' is sensed. Try as we might to get help from our magical friends to probe their minds to see more, we haven't learned much. Fighting them to extermination is the only way."

Seeing how much the reborn light cruiser regretted such an action, the very gregarious Oni-Urusian warlord and would-be heir of the Throne of the Maidens were the Urusian Union still an intergalactic empire could only nod in sympathy. "Well, hopefully with the Avalonians on Earth moving to help out now that lunatic Ōgi's finally out of the way, you'll learn more. I have to admit, Mr. Groom sure did the damned right thing for them even if the loss of my daughter's so-called 'army'..."

"Which she would never have claimed as hers in the first place," Mutsu noted as she gave the sobbing Redet Lum a sympathetic look; she had come to represent the American commander in Japan, Rear Admiral (Lower Half) John Richardson.

"No, she wouldn't, Madame Mutsu," Invader said with a wry chuckle as he reached up to scratch the back of his head in embarrassment. "Maidens only know, my wife and I have a lot to do to make up for all the pain we allowed our daughter to go through because of this damned policy of _appeasement_ we had to follow to keep the Niphentaxians on our side." He shook his head. "I hope that the Avalonians succeed in winning those planets they want to get from the Seifukusu. It'll make all but the idiot hotheads everywhere else finally calm down for a change and stop wondering what's happening to this system."

"The Republic of New Avalon would be a buffer state between yourself and the Seifukusu Dominion," Gotō stated. Much that the experienced naval operations officer had to concentrate on the Abyssals, he had been forced thanks to the actions of other agencies in government to keep a weather eye on things in Tomobiki. While the whole town had been made an "exclusion zone" where aliens from other worlds could reside in without much in the way of government interference — this was done to ensure that damage from the culture shock such "first contacts" could have unleashed wouldn't spread elsewhere in case visitors sought different places to live than that one suburb of Metropolitan Tōkyō — a plot by Lum's "most faithful" that could have easily wiped out all life on Earth had it been triggered was discovered by Moroboshi Negako within a week of her last host being literally fired back a year in time by the great Noukiite sky dragon Nengmek'i. The revelations of THAT had soured opinions in the Diet and the Imperial Palace concerning the presence of aliens on Earth.

That had led to this very meeting now in the Moroboshi home near Tomobiki Senior High School.

One that wasn't being crashed in upon by all the many whose lives had intersected that of Redet Lum and her "husband" Moroboshi Ataru in the last year, especially those of their former classmates from Tomobiki High.

The presence of several shipgirls with full rigging deployed — with orders to shoot down ANYONE who dared tried to break into the property in some hopes of seeing Lum's "will" reinforced again upon Ataru — guaranteed that.

Invader shuddered as he tried not to focus on the beings seated beside his current host. To believe the Terrans had resorted to such incredible forms of metaphysical energy manipulation to bring back the living _**souls**_ of the many warships who had fought during the planet's second worldwide war seven decades ago...and all to take down creatures who had been effectively born from the combined rage and anger of many who had fallen over the high seas throughout the past several millennia...

To believe that these beings — from the smallest destroyers to the greatest battleship and carrier — could potentially take down even the most powerful of the one race in the galaxy that the Urusians NEVER spoke of in public by name...!

No.

No matter how much it hurt Lum, his daughter was NOT going to live on this planet anymore.

And if her "husband" — Invader knew that the whole issue of the legality of the "marriage" between Lum and Ataru was questionable given that it was during a Tag Race that the contact with her horns happened, when tagging an Oni's horns for marriage were _**never**_ to happen — was determined to find some way to help the reborn living spirit of his granduncle's ship to adjust to being a human being again, just as thousands like this "Yonaga" had been forced to do for the past half-decade...!

Before he could move to close the meeting and then contact Lum's friend Oyuki to allow them to travel through the Central Warp Chamber of Triton from Tomobiki to Kōri City and an eventual return to Onishuto on Uru, a cell phone chimed. Ōyodo perked on hearing that, then she reached into her skirt to pull out her iPhone. Gazing on the screen there as she called up the picture message that had just been sent in, she then smiled as she held it out to Gotō. "Success, Teitoku!"

Curious, Invader and Ten — Lum was now being comforted by her other best friend, Shigaten Benten of Fukunokami — leaned over to gaze upon the picture that had just been posted to the Twitter account that Enterprise ran:

 **LCDR Yvonne C. Swanson USN** * USS Enterprise CV-6  
Helped Moroboshi Negako and Moroboshi Ataru just find THG Yonaga! The Seventh Carrier of Operation Z is back in service!  
 **# FansoftheAngryOne**

Invader nodded on seeing the tall shipgirl — as tall as he was, he instantly wagered — standing behind two people in black martial arts gi, they now at the shore of an ice-lined cove somewhere far north of here. "He made the names?"

"Excuse me, Captain?" Ōyodo wondered.

"The 'human' names you all use?" he asked as he indicated the heading of the app on the iPhone, which revealed the name the cruiser had been given, Kobayashi Okiku. "He did this in some letter he wrote to the news media three years ago?"

"He did," Ōyodo said with a smile as Mutsu nodded. "All of us."

That earned them a laugh from the alien warlord. "Ha!" He then sneered at Ataru's mother Kinshō. Who, as the visitors from Yokosuka and Sasebo were quick to sense, was shuddering in outrage at the fact that within minutes, her "daughter-in-law" and her cousin would soon vanish from Earth, never to return. And what was worse, the one who had seen to it such would happen was her own estranged son, who had moved out of the house when everyone who had been involved in that incident with Ataru's other would-be "fiancée" had been still stuck on Onishuto thanks to some nosy alien _**dragon**_ of all things.

"To believe he's far _**smarter**_ than you always thought, madame," Invader sneered out, making Ataru's mother quake. "You brought this on yourself. It's no wonder that your son wants nothing to do with you anymore." As Kinshō squawked on hearing that cold observation from the elderly battlewagon warlord, he gazed on Gotō. "Much that Ataru did vex my child a lot, I did care for the lad. Much more than his own flesh-and-blood ever did!" Ignoring the angry shriek from Ataru's mother at his saying that, Invader rose. As Benten helped Lum back to her feet, the "hosts" also got up. "We'll be out of your way from now on, Admiral Gotō. Good luck to you all." He then smiled as he pointed to Ōyodo's cell phone. "And especially to that one."

"Appreciated, Captain Invader. Good luck to you as well," Gotō said as he and the two shipgirls at his side saluted.

Invader nodded in delight before before he and Ten moved to head upstairs to Ataru's old bedroom, where the warp-in point from Neptune's largest moon was now awaiting for their use. Benten moved to walk Lum up after her father, but the Oni teenager stopped just at the bottom of the stairs. As Kinshō brightened in hope that her idiot son's "wife" would change her mind, Lum then gazed on Ōyodo. "Please tell Negako-san to take care of Darling, Okiku-san," she then said in a voice full of ashes. "Funny that the being that was _**inside**_ his very mind cared more for him than his other relatives EVER did!"

As Kinshō fell flat on her face, Lum and Benten headed upstairs. "I'll do that, Lum-san," the cruiser then vowed...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Ryūseizen** — Dragon-killing ship; **Doho** — Compatriot; **Rheinübung** — Rhine Exercise; **Tennō Heika Gunkan** — Warship of His Majesty the Heavenly Sovereign (short-formed as **THG** ); **Arahitogami** — Divine being who is human; **CANTASS** — Canadian Tactical Towed Array Sonar; **SOSUS** — Sound Surveillance System; **EMCON** — Emissions Control, the military term for total silence by radio, radar or any other form of energy transmission that could be detected; **Hit'kyechtechhu** — Angel of the abyss; **Kontō** — Soulsword; **Gensui** — Field marshal/Fleet admiral/Marshal of the air force (NATO rank code OF-10); **Taishō** — General/Admiral/Air chief marshal (NATO rank code OF-9); **Chōkan** — Literally "government chief", this marks a head of a section of government (like an American secretary of state); **Sano-wan** — Sano Bay; **Kūkisaikuru** — Air cycle; **Yamato damashii** — Japanese spirit; **Bunka-gonen** — Fifth year of Bunka (the year 1808 CE); **Chūshingura** — Treasury of Loyal Retainers; **Kanadehon** — Literally "assumed model"; **KMS** — Short for **Kriegsmarine Schiff** ("War Navy Ship"), the unofficial ship prefix used in the universe of this story for German warships of the World War Two era.

And a special list of clothing, armour and weapons parts: **Daikyū** — Great bow; **Dō** — Cuirass (breastplate armour); **Umanori hakama** — Horse-riding pleated trousers; **Zōri** — Thong sandals; **Tare** — Fauld (groin shield); **Kusari** — Chainmail; **Sode** — Spaulder (shoulder guards); **Kote** — Vambrace (forearm guards); **Suneate** — Greave (shin guards); **Yotsugake** — Four-fingered archer's glove; **Hassun-nobi** — Literally "eight-sun long", this is a 245 cm long bow; **Daishō** — Literally "long and small", this is the combined katana and wakizashi blade set carried by all samurai.

Note that the name of **HMCS** _ **Chennalton**_ is pronounced / **ʃɛnoʊ'tən** / in the International Phonetic Alphabet, with stress on the second syllable. The first two syllables are spoken the same way the family name of famous American pilot **Claire Lee Chennault** (1890-1958) is pronounced, with a "sh" sound starting off in lieu of the "ch" as it is written.

The **Canadian Rangers** ( **CDN RANG** ) are part-time military forces composed of platoon-sized patrols located in isolated communities in Canada's northern regions and on the island of Newfoundland, well away from where standard military units could be realistically based due to lack of decent ground transportation networks or other economic support issues. Numbering around 5,000 these days, the Rangers are composed of both First Nations, Inuit, Métis and non-Aboriginal volunteers. The whole force is split into five patrol groups of battalion-level strength, distributed as such:

 **1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group** ( **1 CPRG** ) — Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut  
 **2e Groupe de Patrouilles des Rangers Canadiens** ( **2e GPRC** ) — Québec  
 **3rd Canadian Ranger Patrol Group** ( **3 CPRG** ) — Ontario  
 **4th Canadian Ranger Patrol Group** ( **4 CPRG** ) — British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba  
 **5th Canadian Ranger Patrol Group** ( **5 CPRG** ) — Newfoundland and Labrador

And a list of kanmusu names and human names for this chapter:

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **HMCS Chennalton** — Patricia Beatrice Chennalton  
 **HMCS Haida** — Roberta Petra "Bobbie" Welland

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Akagi** — Fujita Anna  
 **THG Kaga** — Fujita Kei  
 **THG Sōryū** — Sumire Sei  
 **THG Hiryū** — Sumire Hiyoko  
 **THG Shōkaku** — Matsubara Kanako  
 **THG Zuikaku** — Matsubara Suzue  
 **THG Yonaga** — Itō Yoiko  
 **THG Yamato** — Itō Yasuko  
 **THG Musashi** — Itō Mutsuko  
 **THG Shinano** — Itō Shizuka  
 **THG Izumi** — Itō Izumi  
 **THG Kongō** — Chihaya Anne  
 **THG Hiei** — Chihaya Sarah  
 **THG Kirishima** — Chihaya Isabel  
 **THG Haruna** — Chihaya Harumi  
 **THG Nagato** — Yamamoto Reiko  
 **THG Mutsu** — Yamamoto Chiyoko  
 **THG Tenryū** — Shimosuwa Tamiyo  
 **THG Ōyodo** — Kobayashi Okiku  
 **THG Fubuki** — Fukushima Fujiko  
 **THG Mutsuki** — Kisaragi Mutsuko  
 **THG Akatsuki** — Akamatsu Tsukiko  
 **THG Hibiki** — Akamatsu Himeko  
 **THG Inazuma** — Akamatsu Inoue  
 **THG Shimakaze** — Toyama Sumie

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS New Jersey** — Anne Katharine "Kathy" Hyde  
 **USS Iowa** — Minerva Abigail "Gabby" Lucas  
 **USS Enterprise** — Yvonne Claudia Swanson  
 **USS Arizona** — Sonia Lily Owings  
 **USS Pennsylvania** — Margaret Hannah "Maggie" Penn  
 **USS Saratoga** — Olive Dionysia "Dionne" Doolittle  
 **USS Johnston** — Rose Victoria Johnston  
 **USS (ex-KMS) Prinz Eugen** — Olympia Catarina "Rinnie" von Savoyen

A nod to _**Sasahara17**_ for Enterprise's human name, as always!


	2. An Imperial Rescript for Yonaga

**_DISCLAIMER:_** ** _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_** **Copyright Act** ** _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Sano-wan, Saturday 20 May, an hour after dawn...**_

"Dóbroe útro, továrischi!"

Hearing that jovial voice, Enterprise moaned as she gently shifted the blanket she had spread over her and Yamato away, then she stretched as her internal systems powered on to propel her to full wakefulness. As the super-battleship beside her grunted while her own eyes fluttered, the blonde, blue-eyed carrier looked to the closed entrance of the tent they had put up for themselves near the shore of the cove where Yamato's sister had been trapped for decades. "Is that you, Galína?!"

"Da!" that cheerful voice called back, accompanied by the sweet-sour smell of pipe tobacco. The flap of the tent was then thrown open to reveal a silver-haired battleship of the first dreadnought generation, one of the first to use triple-gun turrets in her main design, inspired by the first Italian dreadnoughts built some years before she was commissioned into the Rossíjskij Imperátorskij Flot for service in the Gulf of Finland. "Ah! Ivónna Víl'jámovna! Jásuko Séiitovna! Pleasant night...?"

Yamato squawked in embarrassment. "Galína-san!"

A rough laugh escaped Gángut before she ducked out of the tent to give her friends a chance to get dressed. By then, the people in the other tents — they had been stowed in the cargo compartments of those amazing hovercycles Moroboshi Negako had sent to help the shipgirls wrap up the action at Little Diomede yesterday — were getting up and preparing breakfast before they would head back to Japan now that the mission to free the Bering Strait was done...with the extra bonus of finally contacting the fifth Yamato-class warship, who had been marooned in this mesonium-masked cove for over seven decades, her crew of well-trained warriors staying alive and preparing themselves for their mission to attack Pearl Harbour as had been ordered in 1941. A mission that had significantly changed when the accursed Abyssals attacked Sano-wan in hopes of slaughtering Yonaga's crew and forcing the seventh carrier of Operation Z to become a dark warrior of the deep.

"Dobró pozhálovat' v zalív Sanó, Galína Vladímirovna Jurkévich."

Hearing that cold voice echo from nearby, Gángut chuckled. "Ty govorísh' po-Rússki, Jóiko Khirósiovna Itó?" she asked as she calmly took in the pipe smoke while her internal radar went bonkers on sensing the large mass approaching her.

"Ja byl v Sibíri sém'desjat-pjat' let."

Another laugh escaped the first of her class of dreadnoughts before she turned to take in the incredible measure of Yonaga. "That makes you a Great Russian by adoption, then!" the silver-haired battleship then declared in her charmingly accented Japanese. "A good thing those fools in the NKVD and its successor organization never bothered Comrade Marshal Múrometsa and her friends in the NKMD to learn if people like your crew had infiltrated the Ródina to hide from our American comrades, to say anything of Stálin and his lunatics!" She spat that particular dictator's name like it was a curse. "Tell me something, Jóiko: Two years ago at Arkhángel'sk. That was you, wasn't it? Your flyers ripped apart the monsters that were moving to destroy the city with their airplane propellers, not losing any of their number. And they were proper-sized, not faerie-sized."

"Children were being slaughtered to feed those things and create new installation princesses like Hoppō-chan," Yonaga coldly declared as the images of her personally beheading the New Lands Princess three months ago with her own admiral's katana flashed through her mind; that creature had established herself at Ground Zero for the Tsar-bómba on Nóvaja Zemljá. "My pilots were more than happy to do that, especially after Brent-san was able to secure modern communications to let us tap into all the civil emergency frequencies to learn what was happening." She shook her head. "If the mesonium that's in this place didn't help keep my crew young in body as well as spirit, I shudder to think of how many would have viewed even the slaughter of children." A tired sigh escaped the carrier. "There is one small thing about the Russian language that I lament."

That made Gángut perk. "Oh? What's that?"

"That there aren't any decent profanities," the carrier explained, which made the battleship gape at her. "'Nekul'túrnye mónstry' doesn't really do it that well for me at times when I think of these yōma I've fought!"

Another roaring laugh escaped Gángut before she perked on sensing another aircraft carrier approach from astern. "You trying to corrupt this girl, Galína?" Enterprise then asked as she finished putting together her uniform tie.

"She's been corrupted enough, Ivónna!" the battleship said. "I'm trying to _**un-corrupt**_ this one!" She then winked at Yonaga. "Oh, better be prepared to receive a visit from our ambassador when you finally return to Japan, my friend. Since Negáko Khirósukova Morobósi was so kind to reveal all the details of you and what you've done since you got out of this place, the Gosdúma wishes to make you a Heroine of the Russian Federation for your actions at Arkhángel'sk on behalf of your whole crew. Not only that, Comrade Marshal Múrometsa wishes to make you a Warrior Sorceress of the Órden Koschéja for what you did at Gamájun three months ago." As a pained look crossed Yonaga's face, Gángut shrugged. "And you're being a samurai in spirit who would normally refuse such honours while you're alive won't save you from the embarrassment of those ceremonies, my friend. Rumour has it that your Heavenly Sovereign may induct you into the Order of the Chrysanthemum for your actions, both before and after you became a dévochka-korábl'. Certainly, your late admiral will get that posthumously."

Yonaga nearly turned grey at the idea of being forced to receive a medal meant for her late commander Fujita Hiroshi, who had gladly led his crew six months ago into committing seppuku to ultimately power the magical blood wards layered all over the ship to transform the largest of Japan's carriers into a fighting kanmusu that could take the battle to the Abyssals in a way she never could have before. While she sometimes found herself privately cursing her crew for doing that after hearing what the veterans of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron did to transform those eight monster-hunting machines into kanmusu five years before while the first generation of shipgirls were being summoned to duty at Eta-jima, the shackles of loyalty binding her to the memories of those brave souls were as solid for her as a mountain. Her karma had been enhanced tremendously when her crew decided to postpone their long-delayed participation in Operation Z to deal with the immediate problem of the Abyssals. Still, she sometimes wondered if the cursed title "Angry One" used on her by the enemy wasn't actually a warning to her from the Kami that she was allowing her own rigid adherence to the traditions of the samurai to lead her astray.

That couldn't happen when humanity needed her the most...!

"You won't veer off course, Miss Yoiko."

Hearing that voice tinged still with pain and grief, Yonaga looked over as a scarred Pennsylvania-class super-dreadnought came over to join them. "You are willing to try to better understand my culture even if your own heart screams for something that was never truly your fault, Sonia-san," the carrier noted as Arizona exchanged nods with Enterprise and Gángut. "I must confess, your asking me to attend a kabuki play with you once we make port was rather unexpected."

Arizona's eyes flashed with mischievousness. "I have a reason for it."

An eyebrow arched in response. "Oh?"

"Your current armament," the standard battleship noted. "I saw you openly wince when you saw my rigging yesterday. Try as people might, I can't seem to progress myself to the level I was at when your friends attacked Pearl, much less how Margaret was enhanced after that fight. No 'Kai' upgrade for me so far. The only conclusion..." Here, Arizona sighed as she felt the familiar anger rip through her again, fighting it down with superb control. "You've dealt with the Leviathan Hunters; it's the only explanation as to how you acquired such modern armament without going into a drydock. I know two of them were off O'ahu that day. They pulled out a third of my crew. I've wanted to know their names...and find a way so I can stop being...!"

Here, she shuddered...before a hand landed on her shoulder. "Your karma is more wounded that I first suspected," Yonaga gently whispered. "Fret not about this, Sonia-san. My honour has locked me into not revealing the names of the Ryūseizen to those who are not authorized to know that. But I do know them. I'll convey your thanks. As for your need to upgrade yourself, we'll need to be like ninja to prove to your admirals that you are as viable on the oceans as your sister is."

Hearing that made Arizona gape in shock before a light smile crossed her scarred face. "You are far too kind, Miss Yoiko. Quite surprising given how angry your people must have been to have launched such an attack on us."

"Your government pushed us into a corner, mostly because of the racism that had been in place since your republic's founding in 1776," Yonaga noted. "That's not to say we were different, but look at the example of that brave cook who served on West Virginia. He was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions in the attack, standing at his captain's side, wasn't he?" As the older battleship nodded, the carrier sighed as she pulled her hand away; she had sensed that Pennsylvania had got up and was moving to locate her sister. Much that she wasn't really scared of the vengeance-crazed super-dreadnought, Yonaga didn't want to provoke something while she had more pressing matters before her now. "We were tired of being the victims of the 'white man's burden'. Look how Michiko-san reacted when she was first summoned to duty at that concert."

Arizona winced on hearing that...

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

"So it was that Jap boy that gave us our human names?"

New Jersey tried not to moan as the image of her kicking Pennsylvania's stern with her sea boots flashed through her combat information centre. "Yeah, Maggie, it was him!" the second of the Iowa-class battleships tried not to hiss out as she glared at the shuddering standard. As the destroyers of Taffy Three moved to take down the tent while Yūdachi got a portable stove going to get breakfast cooked, the namesake of the Garden State added, "He saw us as human spiritually right from the start, so he felt it was only right for us to get names that make us sound normal. After all, there's going to be an 'after-war'..."

"Yeah! Even in America, people might look at you weird first if you introduced yourself by ship name," Iowa commented as she sipped the coffee that Fubuki made for her. "He sure did put a lot of thought into those names, didn't he?"

Jersey nodded before she perked as Nagato came over. Mutsuki and Saratoga were now moving to disassemble the tent the operations director to Admiral Gotō Kiichi and her girlfriend had used the previous night when the planet's first true artificial intelligence insisted everyone stay undercover the previous evening in lieu of sleeping out in the open as Yonaga had often done. "News from home?" the American battleship added as Fubuki moved to make some tea for the other battleship.

"Teitoku just confirmed that the aliens have agreed to leave Tomobiki, Katharine-san," Nagato stated as she sat at the camp chair beside Iowa. "The revelations of that bomb Negako-san discovered a month ago while all the 'usual suspects' were then unable to muddle the subject up made it far easier for the Diet to close down that 'exclusion zone' they made out of Nishitōkyō and send all the aliens back to their home planets. For their 'safety', of course." As the other shipgirls laughed, the battleship added with a disgusted shake of her head, "I can't believe how much the Urusians felt they had to bend over for this Ōgi lunatic that Ataru-kun railed about all the time when he briefed all of us of what was really going on in that town."

"This kid was the Niphentaxians' _**president**_?!" Iowa spat out, shaking her head in bewilderment. "And he was Ataru's age?! Who the hell decided to make a kid the leader of twenty billion people?!"

Nagato shook her head. "Do you know the _Star Trek_ episode 'A Piece of the Action', Abigail-san?" At the American's nod, the Japanese battleship added, "These Niphentaxians are technological savants. Brilliant in duplicating the technology, social structures and cultural mores of other races...but totally lacking when it came to being self-creative. They were able to infiltrate our societies with ease even if they did nothing overt to hurt any of us; their need to replicate Terran culture and society was so profound, they'd never think of doing anything that would hurt us in the long term." She then sighed. "When Ōgi fixated on Lum-san ten years ago after she rescued him from those Terrible Swamps near her home, he created something far too many on Phentax Two wanted: A way to unify the factions and make them the most powerful people in this Galactic Federation alliance that Uru and other planets whose people have come here since the Tag Race are a part of." She shrugged. "The power clearly went to his head and he set himself up to fail, especially when he decided to declare Ataru-kun the 'great evil' of his 'church' that turned Lum-san into an effective arahitogami in the eyes of his fellow citizens. I doubt she liked the idea of his attacking the home planet of her old combat teacher with a _**biological warfare bomb**_ six years ago to try to kill this Mikado fellow." As the others all scowled, Nagato sighed before nodding as Fubuki came over with the tea.

"It's no wonder that this Nengmek'i fellow intervened when he did," Kaga mused from nearby as the others of the Kidō Butai enjoyed their meal; in respect to Yonaga and what her crew had gone through over a period of seventy years, everyone had enjoyed a simple supper of rice with maguro-sashimi, azarashi and nori no tempura the previous evening after they got to Sano Bay. "These ch'uokyek — is that how you address them as...?" At the other shipgirl's nod, the converted battleship sighed. "They sensed the Abyssals about to unleash themselves on humanity, then moved to seal the planet off from those who would enslave humans for their own desires. While the Urusians did their 'invasion' to block any overt attempts at subjugation — trusting that the Niphentaxians would be at their side — it actually did what it did. What Captain Invader didn't expect..."

"Was his daughter causing Ataru a tonne of hell just because she wanted to get away from her then-fiancé," Iowa finished. "Yeah, the guy was cute...but God! He could probably eat Anna under the table!" She thumbed Akagi in emphasis.

The others all chuckled on hearing that...

* * *

 _ **At the entrance of the bay...**_

"Ataru-san?"

Moroboshi Ataru perked on hearing that voice, then he looked over before he smiled. "Isabel-san," he called out as Kirishima came over to join him. "Everyone get some breakfast into them before we head home?"

"Hai," the third of the Kongō-class battleships said as she sat down on the rock beside him, gazing at the hazy morning over the Chukótskoe Sea and the northern stretch of the Bering Strait with the coast of Alaska just two hundred kilometres to the northeast. "Those hovercycles were quite nice to ride, but many of us would prefer to sail under our own power to Japan."

"Onē-san warned me that Tennō would desire Yoiko-san to come back right away," he advised as he tried not to stare too much at such an incredibly graceful and beautiful woman, appearing to be the age of the Shintō shrine miko and auxiliary school nurse that had been one of the minor banes of his life when he was living in Tomobiki over a year before in his personal time-line, Sakurambō Sakura. "She's gone down to Kyōto to get him to put out an Imperial Rescript to override Yamamato-gensui's orders concerning _Yonaga_ to have her abort attacking Pearl and return back to duty. Especially to be properly commissioned into the Self-Defence Forces since she never was properly commissioned into the Imperial Navy."

She nodded. "Yoiko-san won't like the concept of 'self-defence' being applied to our military," she warned. "If she's been raised in the classic samurai virtues, the idea of fighting in defence would be loathsome to her. Samurai were trained to always attack. The whole thing with Article Nine of the Constitution — one forced on Japan by America — will be a red flag in front of her. She'll not care for acknowledging anything declared by the Diet or by anyone else outside Tennō."

"Well, that's where Onē-san comes in," he assured her. "She IS Teitokukan Yonjū-kū, remember?" At her laugh, he sighed. "I don't know where she'll be based. Hopefully Sasebo or Eta-jima. I wouldn't want her anywhere close to Tomobiki."

"Oh? Why?"

"She's vowed to behead my parents if she ever gets the chance."

That made her gape. "Why?!"

"Because Baka Tō-san 'defied' my late grandmother by marrying — or being FORCED to marry! — Baka Kā-san after she got pregnant with me and my twin brother Kaeru. Ō'oji-chan would have taught Yoiko-san all about the rules and traditions of my family," he said as a churlish smile crossed his face. "The stupid yūjo — I'm using Yoiko-san's term for her — was the school slut at Tomobiki High back when she was my age. She didn't have protection when she bedded Baka Tō-san and got caught just before they graduated. They never got into good universities since Baka Tō-san refused to get charity from Obā-chan — this was because he wanted to have nothing to do with our clan's traditional duties serving Tennō — and he had to go to night school to get his degree while he was working for Marubishi and Company." He shook his head. "Much that I had fallen out of love with Lum over the last year because of my finding out things she would have probably preferred I not learn without her input, I wanted most of all to get her away from those two fools. The way they were sopping to her and Jariten all the time..."

"Not to mention joining the Greek chorus that was the rest of Tomobiki in blaming you for the things that happened there that were beyond your control or things you had nothing to do with," she noted as a wry smirk crossed her face. "Hai, it might be smart to keep Yoiko-san away. If all the reports the Canadian Rangers and the Russian Spetsnáz have made about the 'Angry One' actually BEHEADING installation princesses she's subdued ever since she first appeared a half-year ago are true..." She then hummed. "We'll be covering all the streets of Tomobiki in bodies. All of them _**heads shorter**_."

"While some might deserve it, others won't," he noted. "Pity that Nengmek'i-ojiichan didn't teleport everyone back to town until after that bomb was sent back to the Niphentaxians to blow up Lum's so-called 'army'." He shook his head. "You can lay a strong bet that Mendō and Megane's crew are going to try to fuddle it up some way to make it seem as if I _**deliberately**_ attacked Lum's people to drive her off Earth to keep her away from all her 'fans' in Tomobiki." Another shake of the head before he perked as she reached over to squeeze his shoulder in reassurance. "Yoiko-san would look at that as a personal insult and move to 'avenge my honour' with all the katana she got from her crew. Much that I've seen more than my fair share of blood over the last year at Morningstar Plain and when I helped free the Avalonians, I don't want to be swamped in it."

"I wonder if the Urusians ever understood the price they were going to pay when they chose you as Earth's 'champion'..."

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, four hours later (local time: An hour before breakfast)...**_

" _ **THE SEVENTH ONE HAS RETURNED! BANZAI! BANZAI! THE ICE DIDN'T SINK HER! SHE'S COME TO SAVE US ALL! BANZAI! BANZAI! NOW WE'LL FINALLY WIN! BANZAI! BANZAI! TENN**_ _ **Ō**_ _ **HEIKA BANZAI!**_ "

As Mendō Gennosuke's son Hajime moved to calm the retired Kempeitai officer down as the patriarch of his family continued to celebrate the return of the seventh carrier of Operation Z, Mendō Ryōko blushed as she gazed in amusement at the middle-aged man who had come to visit the home of Japan's richest family. "I do apologize for that, Denka-sama," the younger heiress to the Mendō Conglomerate stated. "We didn't know of Ojii-sama's connection to Yonaga-sama until now."

Crown Prince Naruhito nodded in understanding. While his father was busy meeting with the woman who had served as the Imperial Throne's personal assassin for many centuries at the Imperial Palace in Kyōto to prepare the necessary Rescript that would relieve the fifth of the Yamato-class warships from her original duty of attacking Pearl Harbour and formally commission her into the Self-Defence Forces as a fighting kanmusu, the heir to the throne had been sent to the most infamous district in the land to calm down the many people there who would have instantly balked at the idea of _**Moroboshi Ataru**_ of all people befriending such a powerful being, especially in the wake of his "finally fulfilling the mission" concerning the aliens and driving them off Earth. "Do not apologize, Ryōko-chan. I'm sure that if she could spare the time, Yonaga-dono would be pleased to come visit some old friends to reform ties. Though I doubt that given that none of your family ever served on her, she'll care too much for your brother's attitudes towards the grandnephew of her junior navigation officer. Even now."

Hearing that, Mendō Shūtarō openly winced at that veiled warning from the soon-to-be crowned Heavenly Sovereign of the land...once the current incumbent abdicated from the throne to then be addressed as "Heisei Daijō-tennō". Much that he had been tempted to have his people tear the country apart to learn where his despised rival had gone to in hopes of finding some way of seeing Redet Lum returned back to Earth and allowed to resume her life here close to all her friends, there was no way in Hell that he would risk IMPERIAL disfavour by "abasing himself before the alien monsters"! Shūtarō had long known that many in the world suspected that the Urusians had something to do with unleashing the Abyssals on humanity. To the outrage of Lum's many fans at Tomobiki Senior High School, current conspiracy theories claimed that the "invasion" of a year before was actually a _**false-flag job**_ that was meant to have assured humans that help was coming to save them from the sea monsters...all to eventually make Earth a tributary planet to Uru, with humanity forever denied to seek its destiny in the stars.

And while he found it hard to believe...

...the evidence of _The Book of Lum_ was nearly impossible to deny.

"It was much of a shock to Ataru-kun as it clearly was to you, Shūtarō-kun."

That made his head snap up as he gazed into the Crown Prince's knowing look. After taking a moment to consider that, Shūtarō then sighed. "Hai," he breathed out in a voice full of ashes. "Much that I have always despised Moroboshi, I never claimed he was the source of all evil in my diaries." He then gave the older man a concerned look. "Did Negako-sama manage to remove all the Niphentaxian spies from the planet, Denka-sama? We can't afford to allow alien technology..."

"They are gone," the Crown Prince assured him. "During her sojourn on Noukiios, Negako-san made the acquaintance of several residents of the planet Yiziba, which is not that far away from planet Elle. She was able to help several of their more powerful residents be reborn as Terran-born Yizibajohei to help forge links between our people and the one race in all the local cluster that the Urusians and their allies FEAR above all else. One of them — the current incarnation of the Lady Infinity — was responsible for both removing the Niphentaxian spies plaguing our planet and that bomb from the town Ginza here." At his saying that, Ryōko, her parents and her grandfather winced on remembering seeing the bomb — said to be more powerful than any Terran device, even the famous Tsar-bómba of 1961 — literally YANKED out of the ground in the Tomobiki Ginza, then propelled through a space warp to wipe out a fleet of THREE THOUSAND starships at anchorage somewhere in space! All those starships had been coloured the orange-with-tiger striping of the Defence Forces of the Union of Uru even if they had been built and managed by the Defence Forces of the Union of Phentax Two, the so-called "Army of Lum". "You stayed in Onishuto for a week after Ataru-kun was forced back in time and moved to Okusei to meet Lady K'ekhech and proceed to have Negako-san removed from his mind. Surely, you saw the ruins of the old capital city north of the present town."

A shudder ran through the younger man, his heart instantly sinking into his bowels at the sheer thought of Lum being forced to face any of the horrifyingly powerful and insane metahumans of the World of the Forge of the First Race, the planet where the Power Jewels like the one held by one Major Dean Raeburn of the Canadian Army were first created. "H-hai! B-but...!"

A gentle shake of the head silenced him. "No, Shūtarō-kun. While your sympathies to Lum-san are understandable given that she wasn't the ogre some imagined her to be when she made her declaration of marriage to Ataru-kun, there are far too many who DO see her as an ogre. And thus, see all of you in Tomobiki as effective _**traitors to humanity**_ for your 'support' of her wishes over the needs of all of Earth." As Shūtarō gasped on hearing that, the Crown Prince added, "In fact, there are radical sects from the Middle East and America who would gladly come after you with loaded automatic weapons and vests made of plastic explosives to see you all 'pay' for your 'treason'. Do you really wish to face such beings? Do any of your friends?"

A sinking feeling fell over the scion of Japan's richest family. "No..."

"Good." With that, the older man stood, causing his hosts to all stand...save Shūtarō's grandfather given his infirmity; he was currently in a wheelchair, having been brought up from his underground residence to greet the Crown Prince. "Do see to it that all in Tomobiki understand that in the future, my friends," the Crown Prince declared. "We'll take our leave of you right now."

He walked out, leaving behind a sick-looking Shūtarō, who didn't get any sympathetic looks from the others of his family...

* * *

 _ **Ky**_ _ **ōto, approaching the Imperial Palace, two hours later...**_

"Are we THERE yet?!"

"Relax, Rose-chan!" Ataru teased as he gazed in amusement at a chorus of very sick-looking shipgirls while the tilt-jet near-replica of a Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tactical transport hovered over a clear patch of ground near the Kenrei-mon, the southern gate to the inner palace grounds located in the downtown section of Japan's old imperial capital city. "We're landing."

"Thank CHRIST!" Johnston moaned out as she tried not to throw up her breakfast into the small air sickness bag she had been handed by the sympathetic Air Self-Defence Force flight engineer who had kept an eye on his distinguished guests.

"This flyin' stuff's for the damned BIRDS!" Hoel added as she tried to keep her breakfast down. "We're SHIPS! We don't fly!"

"Yeah! Zeppelins like Akron and Macon do that, but not us!" Heermann grunted as Fubuki — who also looked ill in the mainmast — squeezed her shoulder in comfort. "Damn! I ain't ever gonna complain about arrogant zoomies ever again!"

Pain-filled agreeing chimes escaped the others destroyers in the tilt-jet as it came down onto the grass lawn. Once the engines finally shut down, the flight engineer headed aft to open the back boarding gate, revealing a near-perfect female replica of Ataru in a black gi with hakama trousers. "You did treat them properly before they boarded the Dynajet, did you?" Moroboshi Negako wondered as Ataru moved to walk the shuddering Johnston and Hoel out of the aircraft.

"I did. But how do you deal with their gyroscopes, Onē-san?" he asked as the two Fletcher-class destroyers collapsed to their knees and kissed the grass under their feet, moaning gratitude on feeling solid earth under their keels again.

"I will examine them later. Rose, Madelyn, cease that."

"Pay it no mind, Negako-kun," a strange voice bade from the direction of the gate, that accompanied by an amused chuckle. As those shipgirls who seemed better composed than the destroyers who had fallen at the Battle off Samar during Leyte Gulf instantly braced to attention on seeing the Heavenly Sovereign and his wife standing close to Negako, the current holder of the Chrysanthemum Throne gave the two destroyers a sympathetic look. "I can understand why Rose-chan and Madelyn-chan are having issues concerning travelling in a way they were never designed to experience. As is Inoue-chan over by the ramp."

Heads snapped over to see a retching Inazuma being comforted now by Tenryū and the childish destroyer's sisters. Seeing that, Yonaga looked totally embarrassed at the thought of a fleet mate acting so dishonourably before the Son of Heaven; she had meditated on the flight down from Sano Bay, drawing on her crews' decades of experience to keep herself calm and cool in such an alien environment as _**flying**_ within the huge metal albatross that had saved the shipgirls days getting back to Japanese territory. As soon as the final coughs escaped Inazuma, the cute destroyer then stood, turned and bowed low to her overall commander-in-chief. "Sumimasen, nanodesu!" she croaked out. "I thought I could be strong..."

"Inoue-chan, was it your first time?" the Sovereign Consort asked with a smile.

The girl known to Ataru as Akamatsu Inoue nodded. "I wanted to be strong, Obā-chan...!"

Yonaga gaped on hearing the destroyer address the wife of the Son of Heaven with such a familiar title, though she was quick to sense Ataru squeeze her hand in reassurance. The Heavenly Sovereign himself was quick to sense that. "Much has changed in this land since your brave crew were last here, Yonaga-dono," he said with proper dignity, which made the carrier instantly stiffen. "We trust you will face those uncertainties ahead of you with proper stoicism and respect for Our people after their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had been forced to endure so much to submit to the dark dreams of those who twisted the beliefs and knowledge of Our Late Sire, forcing our land down a path that led to ruin for so many." He raised a cautionary finger as he gave her a knowing look. "As your own admiral once realized years ago, We believe."

Hearing that, Yonaga bowed her head, clasping her hands together in a ritual military salute. "This unworthy one will not fail thee, Heika!" she declared in the courtly ritual language that had been used in the Imperial Palace for centuries. "Command this unworthy one to death and this one will obey with joy, as your noble ancestors have always demanded!"

"Then I demand you obey and LIVE, Yoiko-san," he replied in more modern language, which made her gape in shock at him. "As I said, much has changed. But some things have not. Attend me and my guests in the reception room, please."

The carrier nodded as she moved into a protective position behind him while the crowd made their way through the Kenrei-mon into the palace; the Imperial Family had relocated to the ancient capital shortly after the "Miracle of Tōkyō Bay" five years ago saw Kongō and her sisters recalled to duty as shipgirls to fight of a massed attack on the capital city, delivering the first defeat to the Abyssals since the war began. This was thanks to a brave battle-mage from Wales now teaching at Mahora near Tōkyō named Negi Springfield, who discovered very ancient spells once known to the Immortal Master himself that could animate the living spirits of inanimate objects and give them human form. That had ultimately been prompted by the decade and more of unrelenting bloodletting unleashed on magical security forces across Earth as they desperately tried to keep the threat from the abyss back and away from normal people. Such had been something that had effectively guaranteed the final destruction of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy even if certain magical governments worldwide still clung onto the hope of seeing matters restored to "normal" once the Abyssals were gone and they could reassert their traditional rights.

Rights, the Heavenly Sovereign knew, they wouldn't get back.

The bungling by many magicals at the beginning of the Abyssal War wasn't going to be forgotten.

Magicals — especially in more traditional enclaves in Europe and America — would be made to conform to modern realities.

Whether those people liked it or not.

The group of humans and shipgirls made their way through the Jomei-mon into the Shishin-den, the hall where ceremonies had been held in old days and which served as the Heavenly Sovereign's main reception room these days. Seated at the table there was a smiling middle-aged man in relaxed clothing, the jacket with the emblem of the chief executive of the United States of America draped over him. "Mister President!" Enterprise called out as all the American shipgirls snapped to attention and saluted Josiah Bartlet while the Japanese shipgirls bowed formally to the former governor of New Hampshire.

"At ease, Commander Swanson," the President stated as he slowly rose to his feet, leaning on his cane as he moved to walk over to stand before Yonaga. "Captain Itō, on behalf of all Americans, I thank you dearly for your crew's incredible actions three years ago at Prudhoe Bay," he declared, which made the carrier blush. "A lot of lives were saved by those brave flyers of yours. I realize this isn't your way, but I would consider it the greatest of honours to shake your hand."

"She's a little too tall for head pats, sir," New Jersey joked.

"Commander Hyde, that's enough or I'll have you busted back to ensign by Presidential Order," Bartlet snapped, which made the Imperial couple laugh as the namesake to the Garden State ducked that angry look.

"Yessir!"

Yonaga blinked, then she offered her gloved hand for the president to take. "Even if your predecessors sought to suppress my people back in the days before I was built at Maizuru, Mister President, my crew and I've heard much about your actions since you were voted into the White House. That you serve even after the Kami nearly struck you down with such a horrible disease as the one that was reported three years ago when those baying idiots in the Congress moved to censure you..."

"The price of democracy, Captain," Bartlet said as he shook her hand.

"She'll be a captain, sir?" Iowa asked.

"Given her time on duty, she deserves it, Commander," the president stated before he gazed on his host. "Which means I do believe I must turn things over to you, Your Majesty. Forgive me for slightly spoiling the surprise."

The Heavenly Sovereign chuckled. "Please don't apologize, Bartlet-hakase!" he said as he waved his primary guest to his chair while his wife took her own seat nearby. "My friends, please be seated and make yourselves comfortable."

The shipgirls all sat down in the chairs nearby, with Yonaga taking the guest of honour position right before the Son of Heaven, her two oldest sisters moving to sit at her sides and her younger sisters flanking them. Taking his own place at the head of the table, the leader of Japan bowed his head formally to the carrier, earning him a deep bow from the waist in return. He then reached down to open the folded sheet of traditional parchment on the table to read aloud:

 _ **By the Grace of Heaven, the Heavenly Sovereign Heisei, seated on the Throne occupied by the same Dynasty from Time Immemorial, enjoins upon ye all, Our beloved brother and sister citizens of the State of Japan:**_

 _We rejoice in the wonderful news that the living spirit of one of the gallant warships who once served Our Late and Illustrious Sire, having survived entrapment within the Bay of Sano for over seventy years due to cruel and uncaring Nature, has gladly answered the call to duty against the dark forces who have risen against all of humanity in the last decade and more._

 _This noble warrior of the high seas, Mistress It_ _ō_ _Yoiko, the Lady_ _ **Yonaga**_ _of Maizuru in the Metropolis of Ky_ _ōto, has to date delivered blow after blow against those who would seek to slay defenceless people living within range of the enemy, even those native of the lands of our honourable allies in this terrible war: The Dominion of Canada, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of Denmark, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Republic of Iceland. Even before she was reborn as kantai musume six months ago thanks to the help of Mistress Patricia Beatrice, the Lady Chennalton of Tadoussac, loyal warrior of Our Beloved Friend Elizabeth the Second, Queen of the Dominion of Canada, her gallant crew fought on with the determination once demanded of them in years past during the Reign of Our Late and Illustrious Sire, bringing honour to them and their families here in Japan._

 _Because of the quite unique circumstances that brought the Lady Yonaga of Maizuru to this place in time, with the Grace of Heaven and with all the hopes of Us and the people of the State of Japan, We proclaim the following:_

 _We declare that any bonds or demands of service that may force the Lady Yonaga of Maizuru to fulfill the orders given to her by the loyal commanders of the Navy of Our Late and Illustrious Sire in the Sixteenth Year of Sh_ _ōwa that eventually launched the Greater East Asia War with the attack on the United States of America on the eighth day of the twelfth month of the Sixteenth Year of Shōwa are hereby and forever removed from her person and her living immortal spirit._

 _In doing that, We declare any accusations of cowardice before the enemy against the late crew of the Lady Yonaga of Maizuru will not be accepted by Us or by the people of the State of Japan. The honour of her brave crew is whole and intact._

 _We declare any accusation which may be forced upon the Lady Yonaga of Maizuru due to her former affiliation to the commanders of the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kant_ _ō Army, whose actions against the innocent peoples of the world brought shame and dishonour to Our Late and Illustrious Sire during the time of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Greater East Asia War, will not be accepted by Us or by the citizens of the State of Japan._

 _In noting that, We declare that since the first day of the ninth month of the Sixteenth Year of Sh_ _ōwa that the Lady Yonaga of Maizuru was a commissioned warship of the Navy of Our Late and Illustrious Sire, with seniority of service from that date to this day. We therefore entreaty upon the Self-Defence Forces of the State of Japan to bestow upon the Lady Yonaga of Maizuru the appropriate rank given her many years of loyal, unswerving service to Our Throne and to the State of Japan._

 _And in the end, We ask upon the people of the State of Japan to welcome the Lady Yonaga of Maizuru as an honoured veteran of a very dark time in our nation's long history. Born as she was from the attitudes that grew out of our nation's drive to modernize in the face of many outside pressures, she is now lost in a land that is alien to her. We therefore ask upon the people of the State of Japan to show forbearance as the Lady Yonaga adjusts to living in such a different age..._

Placing the paper down, the Heavenly Sovereign bowed deeply to Yonaga, which made her nearly croak at such an act of respect by this person her own beliefs declared was the direct blood-descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu-ōmikami.

"Welcome home, Yoiko-san," he finally said as he gazed upon her.

"Hear! Hear!" the American chief of state added...

...before a roaring scream of happiness echoed from outside the palace walls, that making Yonaga gape in shock as that wave of noise thundered in her ears. "It was proclaimed to the public automatically," Negako noted from nearby.

As screams of " _ **YONAGA BANZAI!**_ " and " _ **TENN**_ _ **Ō**_ _ **HEIKA BANZAI!**_ " echoed from outside, the carrier felt tears touch her eyes.

Maybe things hadn't really changed at all...

* * *

 _ **Nerima (east of Tomobiki), that moment...**_

" _ **REJOICE, MY FRIENDS! THIS IS THE MOST WONDERFUL DAY OF ALL!**_ "

Hearing that megaphone-enhanced voice from the arrogant kendō-ka standing before the main doors leading into Fūrinkan Senior High School, the youngest daughter of the patriarch of the Tendō Clan of Ōizumi could only groan before she stared with tear-filled eyes at her sister. "So he gets to gloat," Tendō Akane hissed out as she turned her back on Kunō Tatewaki.

"Do you blame him?" Tendō Nabiki asked.

Hearing that cold and indifferent tone from the older girl, Akane snorted. "You must be happy now," she muttered.

"I never cared for Ranma-kun either which way," Nabiki advised her, ignoring the jolt of outrage from her still stupidly naïve little sister. "While his presence in the house was entertaining at times, I had other things on my mind than to worry about Otō-chan's fool dreams about uniting the 'schools'. Which legally don't exist anywhere in this country. I DID show you Ojii-chan's mastery papers. Remember what Master Hosan declared when it came to Ojii-chan seeking out students of his own? They had to go to Watari-shima and be certified by the Tensei-ryū before they could be declared masters in Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū. Neither Otō-san or Oji-san did that, so their whole stupid 'unite the schools' garbage is that: Garbage."

Akane tensed before she nodded...

...then she shuddered as many boys near the main doors screamed out their approval as the announcement was made by the principal's son and the current captain of the school's kendō team. An announcement that cut Akane to the core of her soul.

Her iinazuke was dead.

Dead...

The man who seemed capable of surviving it all...

Dead...

Dead...!

 _Why...?_

"...that sorcerer Saotome Ranma has finally been defeated and KILLED for his heinous crimes against the beauteous Tendō Akane and the many other poor women who were enspelled by his dark magic!" Tatewaki thundered from his platform, his voice echoing over the school grounds. "I witnessed it myself! Some benevolent kami came along and struck the demon down, forcing him to die in a bed at the hospital, weak and helpless against the righteous fury of the Fates...!"

Akane hissed out as she fought down the urge to rip out a section of fence around the property and use it to bash Tatewaki down and shut him up. Nabiki shook her head before she moved to walk into the school. Seeing that, Akane called out, "What are you going to do now?" As her sister stopped, the "heir" of the "Tendō-ryū" added, "Tō-chan wants you to go find Ranko and get her back here! She's probably the only hope now of letting everyone's dreams be fulfilled...!"

"That person no longer exists."

Both girls jolted on hearing that voice, then they turned...

...before they gaped on seeing the tall and slender woman with the bob-cut dark brown hair in a style almost similar to Nabiki's, a hidden hair band allowing two metal wing-like protrusions to stick out from above her ears. As she was away from her duties at Eta-jima, she didn't wear her normal seagoing uniform. As Nabiki croaked on recognizing the woman for what she was, Akane blinked. "What do you mean? How do you know Ranko? Who are you anyway...?!" she demanded.

"Akane...!" Nabiki hissed out.

" _ **TAIH**_ _ **Ō**_ _ **-SAMA!**_ "

The armoured carrier jolted on hearing that scream of delight, then she turned...

...before her fist lashed out to smash into Tatewaki's face!

Now, unlike _**other**_ times this had happened in Nerima, the result was much different than what one might expect of the "Blue Thunder" of Fūrinkan High and one of the weaker members of what was normally nicknamed the "Nerima Wrecking Crew".

Even if his abilities were nearly superhuman, the late Saotome Ranma normally pulled his punches when it came to his first "rival" for Tendō Akane's hand in marriage, thus not permanently hurting the arrogant kendō-ka.

Taihō wasn't a normal human by any stretch of the imagination.

She was the living representation of a fighting aircraft carrier that displaced a war load of _**thirty-seven thousand tonnes**_!

Result...?

* * *

 _ **A half-hour later...**_

"It wasn't your fault, Taihō-sama. Kunō-kun should have known better to try to pull his tricks around a _**shipgirl**_ of all people!"

Akane winced in mute horror as she tried not to throw up what was left of her breakfast while the images of Tatewaki's face being nearly _**crushed**_ by Taihō's fist replayed once again before her mind's eye. As the school nurse calmly cleaned up the blood that had covered the carrier's hand, the deputy principal of Fūrinkan High, Nanba Shigeru, could only shake his head as he imagined how Tatewaki's father Godai would react to the news of his son being nearly KILLED by a SHIPGIRL who had been coming to visit the school. Remembering what the paramedics had muttered about it being a miracle that the kendō-ka was _**alive**_ and that he might have suffered permanent _**brain damage**_ from the force of the blow — never mind the fact that the man's eyes had been crushed beyond repair from that punch — the youngest daughter of Tendō Sōun could only quake.

Much that she had witnessed Ranma's death the previous night, it had been clean...

...especially with his body just _**disintegrating**_ like it did!

But seeing her would-be suitor permanently CRIPPLED like that...!

"I was informed by my admiral that fool was just incapable of listening to anything told to him by anyone," Taihō calmly noted as she nodded her thanks for the chance to clean her hand up. "I think she understated it."

That made people blink as they gazed at her. "Who's your admiral?" Akane's best friend Asano Sayuri then asked.

"Hayashi Kanami," Taihō stated. "Known here by the false name 'Tendō Ranko'."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **RANKO?!**_ " Akane shrieked out.

Taihō gave her a look that made the young martial artist's knees weaken in terror at the idea of getting into some sort of "accident" with the carrier's fist. "Again, that is not Teitoku's name," she coolly declared.

"Her parents might disagree," Nabiki warned.

"Teitoku doesn't have parents. Not if you're referring to Saotome Genma and his wife Nodoka," the carrier calmly replied, which made Akane gape in shock at that cold assertion. "They signed away all rights to their children the instant they defied their promise to the Hayashi Clan of Inari-chō — Genma-san's late parents, if you wish to know — and refused to raise their children 'properly' as was promised in a legal premarital agreement that was signed before Genma-san married his wife and adopted the Saotome family name. That was defined by Teitoku's late grandmother as NOT following the thieving ways of Happōsai, much less supporting the LIES about the true ancestry of Nodoka-san. And no, she's not burakumin."

"So what does that mean for Ranko-chan?!"

Taihō's eyes focused then on Kuonji Ukyō, which made the chef from the outskirts of Kyōto suddenly tense as she realized her mistake. "I said there is no such person, Ukyō-san," the carrier icily warned. "Do pay attention, please. Or are you still intent on proving Teitoku's theories about the people of the 'wrecking crew' and all those who love to fawn all over them?"

People gulped. "Wh-what does th-that mean, Taihō-sama?" one of the kendō-ka who followed Tatewaki sputtered.

"That you all take _**stupid pills**_ in the morning."

Mass face-fault! As the nurse and the deputy principal both tried not to laugh on seeing the arrogant kids react THAT way at being called onto the carpet like that, Taihō reached into her skirt to draw out a folded letter. "This is a message from the chief judge of the Tōkyō Family Court," she said, that phrase making Ukyō and Nabiki instantly wince on realizing that the _**one**_ element of society that could easily have overridden all their private hopes and dreams was now officially involved in the affairs surrounding Saotome Ranma. "Given the circumstances by which Teitoku came into being, neither Saotome Genma nor Saotome Nodoka will ever gain rights to become Teitoku's legal parents. Furthermore, honour claims by all parties concerning the late Saotome Ranma are seen as having been settled by his death. None will transfer to Teitoku. Any of you seen to be approaching Teitoku will be considered hostile and treated appropriately." As the people in the room cringed on hearing that threat, Taihō smirked. "Including the deliberate use of the Jusenkyō curses against people such as Nǚ Shānpú-san, Liào Mùsī-san, Hibiki Ryōga-san and Saotome Genma-san. After all, they could be seen as _**Abyssals**_. Not to mention being _**wild animals**_. We have no desire to deal with any sort of wild animals at any of the Naval Districts. The people who work there have the right to have a safe and secure environment from all potential threats. Including selfish lunatics who don't seem to care whatsoever about the amount of pain they unleash because they follow their false concepts of _**honour**_."

As people winced again and Akane blinked in confusion on hearing that Hibiki Ryōga somehow had a Jusenkyō curse, Taihō handed the letter to Deputy Principal Nanba. "We'll honour the judgement of the Family Court, Taihō-sama," he declared with a churlish smile as he gazed in amusement at the many stunned students hearing this. "It'll actually be a relief to no longer have to deal with the insanity that some of the people here loved to bathe themselves in." Noting even more winces from many of the people that had often been at the heart of such things, he added, "I hope all goes well with Kanami-kun."

"Thank you, Sensei. Excuse me, please."

With that, she moved to leave. People scrambled out of the carrier's path, many of them bowing apologetically to her as they mumbled words of regret when it came to the magically-created female version of Saotome Ranma that they had effectively shunned in the couple of months that she had been forced to live as "Tendō Ranko" before Christmas. Hearing that, Taihō stopped, making all the students freeze in terror. "You can stop with the _**lies**_ ," the carrier coldly noted.

As people cringed on hearing that, she then gazed on Ranma's would-be fiancées. "Don't expect mercy from Teitoku," she advised, making both Akane and Ukyō wince. "As far as she's concerned, you were the worst liars of all. Not just to her, but to Ranma-san as well. I wonder what he _**really**_ thought of you in the end after you all condemned him to die by using that incense burner." She shook her head. "As Moroboshi Negako-san herself said, 'Jusenkyō will never be denied THAT way'."

As the chef from outside Kyōto dropped to her knees in stunned disbelief at that revelation, the carrier calmly walked away...

...before a scream of agony escaped Akane as she collapsed to the floor, making Sayuri lunge over to comfort her as Nabiki shook her head. "Nicely done, Kanami," she muttered admiringly to herself before she walked out of the nurse's station...

* * *

 _ **Ky**_ _ **ō**_ _ **to, lunchtime...**_

"From the people of Adak Island?"

Major Mack Solette of the United States Army Nurse Corps chuckled as he handed the large tray of tuna casserole to the fifth of the Yamato-class warships. "There was an incident a year ago, about a year after Kathy and her gang came to the island dealing with that hard-headed version of Hoppō, when Kistiñe got hurt," the experienced nursing officer who had often had to help with wounded shipgirls said as he gave Yonaga a knowing look. He glanced over to where the destroyers of Taffy Three were seated alongside their friends from Japan, all chatting avidly away as they enjoyed their drinks and snacks. As Heermann looked over before waving at the man who had helped set her aright after that battle, he shrugged. "A small enemy force came by to attack and wipe out the village on the island; no doubt, they were stragglers from the Northern Princess' combat group. A squadron of Zero-sens with Imperial chrysanthemums came by to chase them off and dive-bombed the destroyers. No other Japanese carrier has chrysanthemums on their aircraft hulls, so it has to have been you in the end, Captain."

Yonaga blinked, then she nodded. "Hai, Solette-sensei. One of the doho who served as part of my air group, Lieutenant Commander Matsuhara Yoshi, was happy to lead his squadron in the defence of Adak. We heard what the people of that island did when Kistiñe-chan was hurt. You gave comfort to many of my fleet mates, including my sister." She indicated Musashi beside her; Yamato and Enterprise sat on the other side as people relaxed at the beautiful outdoor café some blocks from the Imperial Palace. As gabbing people standing nearby all raised their smartphones to get pictures of the seventh carrier of Operation Z to put out to their friends, she added, "Please convey my deepest thanks to the good people of the island for their courtesy. Still, I might not get to it right away. I hope the people of Adak don't take offence. Negako-sama is worried that because my crew was on lean food for all the years they were in Sano-wan, I might be affected the same way."

"You'll be at Sasebo," Solette stated. "Admiral Richardson and Admiral Gotō decided it would be the best place for you since you need time to get up to speed on operations as a shipgirl since you sailed too long as a ship before you were transformed by the Dragon Killer that His Majesty mentioned in his Rescript on you." As the carrier's grey eyes widened in surprise on hearing how fast the American army officer make a conclusion like that, the nurse then winked, "I'll be your chief nurse. If you have issues, come see me. It'll break the old ladies' hearts if they found out all the food they cooked couldn't be eaten."

"I'll fall on my own tantō if that happened!"

"Onē-sama!" Yamato gasped. "Don't say such horrible things!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Yasuko...!" Yonaga said as she stared wide-eyed at her sister.

"Relax."

That was Enterprise. "Love, remember, your sister needs time," the carrier soothed as she gently squeezed her girlfriend's shoulder. "She hasn't had any chance to understand what's really expected of a modern Japanese woman, not like you or any of the other girls who were called back to duty at the quarterdeck at Eta-jima or Sasebo. She's been too busy living on the edge even before she was turned into a shipgirl by..." She stopped herself, then she sighed. "'Chennalton'? That's her ship name? The Dragon Killer that helped you become a shipgirl?" she then guessed as she gave Yonaga a knowing look.

"Hai," the larger carrier answered. "She was there for Yasuko in 1945."

Yamato blinked before her cheeks reddened. " _Her_...?"

"She told me that those of your crew that hers saved were resettled in places where they were allowed to live their lives in peace in Canada once the war was ended. Few had reasons to return back to Japan and they were welcomed among the enclaves Patricia-san's creators had created for themselves. Just as all the crews of the Ryūseizen have done for all those they've rescued from the kaijū. A certain international statute still governs my revealing all that I know..."

"The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, you mean?"

That was a grinning Mack Solette. "I assume you're a nimmib," Yonaga mused.

He chuckled. "Not an ounce of magic anywhere inside me, Captain. But when you hang around shipgirls, you have to accept that magic exists. And I have met Commander Yamamoto's adopted son; he goes to a magical school in Scotland right now." At Yonaga's wide eyes — she knew Nagato had adopted a child four years ago, but hadn't know he had been born with _that_ gift — he added, "Look at Commander Thompkins of the War Hawks. She's magical even if most normal people tend to think of her as an odd type of metahuman. What happened in the war between the War Hawks, the Übermenschen, the Liberty Legion and the other groups guaranteed that." At Yonaga's nod, Solette whistled. "Damn! The Canadians built _**battleships**_?! And were able to build them back before World War One happened?! Then again, given they created the War Hawks...!"

"With help from Master Hosan," Enterprise advised. "Remember that part."

"I don't think the captain wants to be reminded of that, Commander Swanson."

[Thank you for doing that, Major Solette.]

People gasped, then they gazed on Yonaga...

"Teitoku! Is that you?!"

That was a wide-eyed Kaga; the members of the Kidō Butai had been seated at the next table had heard that voice. As people looked, a small form dressed in an old-style Imperial Navy uniform now stood on Yonaga's left shoulder, gazing in amusement at the American army health care officer. Seeing that, Solette straightened himself as the people nearby squealed in delight on seeing one of the seventh carrier's own large crew of faeries...which they all knew had been living people up to six months ago, when they sacrificed themselves to give Yonaga the ability to transform into a kanmusu. "Admiral Fujita Hiroshi, I presume," he said with a perfect West Point salute; as Americans didn't mind saluting without headgear, it was proper.

A delighted laugh escaped the last living element of the man who would have properly led Operation Z hadn't a certain earthquake trapped his command ship in a cove on the Arctic coast of Siberia for seven decades. [Amazing that you Americans say it _**that**_ way all the time!] the spirit of the former University of Southern California student from the early 1920s stated as he gave the major a knowing look. [Even if your own Admiral Richardson will be the obvious operational commander of my ship when she bases herself at the Sasebo Naval District, I will always be concerned for the status of my command. You will do your proper duties should Yonaga ever return back to port damaged after facing the enemy, will you?]

"That's my oath, Admiral."

[Good. I appreciate Negako-sama's concern for my ship's welfare. Not only will my chief engineer be available in case you need help, so will my chief hospital orderly. He taught himself everything he needed to understand about human medicine — which kantai musume benefit from given the nature of their beings — during our long confinement in Sano-wan. Even if we still had a medical staff right through to the breakout during our first battle with the yōma, it was better to be safe than sorry.]

"Always a wise choice, Admiral. A lot of American shipgirls back home learning about your command just want the chance to shake her hand for standing the watch up in the Arctic practically all alone for all those years."

The faerie blinked before he smiled. [We did our duty, Major.]

"So must we, sir."

An approving nod answered him. [Indeed.]

* * *

 _ **In a certain castle in northern Scotland, five hours later (local time: An hour after breakfast)...**_

"You can't be serious...!"

"There is no choice, Albus!" Cornelius Fudge stated. "We just got the news from the ambassador of the Eight Commanderies. That foolish muggle emperor of theirs just made mention of Lady Chennalton in a public communiqué!"

Hearing that, Albus Dumbledore tried not to groan as he forced down the surging magic inside his body, preventing it from lashing out at the stupid and cowardly man before him in his private office overlooking the grounds of Hogwarts. "I fail to comprehend how this has anything at all to do with Harry and where he resides when he's not in classes, Cornelius," the aged arch-mage then stated. "You are aware of how he came to be in Lady Nagato's care, aren't you? What makes you think she'll just stand back and allow you to take her own child away from her, all for such a flimsy excuse as THIS?!"

"We have no choice, Albus! You know it's forbidden to speak of any of those monster-killing ships to the muggles! ANY muggles! Even the shipgirls are subject to those laws! We have to get control over this situation...!"

"What situation, pray tell, are you talking about?" the elderly transfiguration and alchemy master who was jointly the Chief Warlock of the British House of Lords Wizengamot, the sitting Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and the current headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry demanded as his blue eyes flared, making the small group of people before him quake. "The Abyssals?! We LOST control of that whole situation over a half-decade ago! Thank Merlin for Nagi's boy and what he discovered from the archives of Master Hosan on Watari-shima that allowed the shipgirls to be called back to duty; if they had not been summoned back, I shudder to think of what might have happened to us all!" Ignoring the indignant looks from Fudge and his current senior undersecretary Dolores Umbridge, Dumbledore tried not to smirk. Given the fractured relations between the Ministry of Magic and the "rogue" magicals who considered the Meridiana Academy of Magecraft in Wales their alma mater, noting that it was the son of the Thousand Master who had made the discovery that allowed shipgirls to exist was certainly causing a lot of furor in London. "Harry was legally AND magically adopted by Lady Nagato. Lady Tsukuyomi herself was more than pleased to oversee the adoption..."

"She has no authority, Headmaster!" Umbridge broke in. "While she should have been put into Nurmengard alongside Grindelwald, she was made to step down from her post as Mahō-Shōgun back when the 'war of liberation' finally ended in 1945! The Eight Commanderies..." — here, she sneered that despised term — "...are to remain separate and never unified under one leader! Besides, why should we allow the Boy-Who-Lived to be adopted by one of those strange muggle golems?! It'd be as bad as one of the _**metahumans**_ of Canada adopting the child! He deserves to remain _**here**_! The Wizengamot voted that into place! So here he'll remain! He'll be adopted by a good and proper family and raised in our ways...!"

The headmaster instantly tuned the obnoxious woman out as she continued her mindless rant over what was "right" and "proper" in British magical society...which was, as typical for the half-blood daughter of a former night janitor at the Ministry, what _**Dolores Umbridge**_ saw as right and proper. Noting that, Amelia Bones tried not to grin too much at the stupid woman's ranting, though she was quick to give Dumbledore a sympathetic look. Given her position as head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, it would fall on Bones to enforce this latest act of insanity by the lords of the Wizengamot. Thanks to the constant bloodletting of Voldemort's rebellion well over a decade before joined with the losses the various magical security forces of the United Kingdom had taken fighting the Abyssals, she wouldn't be able to muster anything that could stop a fast task force from Yokosuka from storming the ramparts of Hogwarts and reuniting Harry with his adopted mother.

And if that coincided with a side trip to _**Buckingham Palace**_...!

 _Dear Merlin, Tsukiko! I should have listened to you all those years ago...!_

* * *

 _ **A half-hour later...**_

"I see."

Dumbledore was quick to see the mask of stoic calm falling over the young first-year student's face. Quietly thanking the influence of such a wide diversity of shipgirls in the long healing which had been needed to help Harry Potter overcome the years of emotional abuse that the headmaster himself unintentionally plunged the boy into when he was left with the Dursleys after the tragic murder of Harry's parents, the aged arch-mage nodded as he gave the younger man an apologetic look. "I will fight this, Harry. The adoption Tsukiko helped your mother do to welcome you into her family was seen as right and proper in the eyes of Magic Itself. You will go back to your mother and your friends in Yokosuka when the school year is over next month. I don't want to risk the reaction of Admiral Gotō's subordinates leading to the Crown coming down on everyone's heads in the Ministry and unleashing something too many are still not prepared for." He shook his head. "Foolish people...!"

"And all this happened because Lady Chennalton was publicly revealed?!"

That was Hermione Granger, who was seated beside her friend. A good selection of first-year students from all the houses had come to Dumbledore's office when they learned Harry had been called in to see the old wizard. Such had instantly earned them points from their heads-of-houses for such a show of loyalty; they were also at the meeting. "That's stupid!" Blaise Zabini snapped. "According to the Rescript just issued by His Imperial Majesty, all that was mentioned of Lady Chennalton was her human name and place of birth. No mention of magic was made whatsoever. As far as most normal people would read this as — and please correct me if I'm wrong, Hermione..." he then said to his study-mate, who smiled in return, "...this was some metahuman from Canada who found out what the Thousand Master's son did and replicated it for Lady Yonaga."

"Oba-chan...you all must be so happy..."

Dumbledore was quick to see the delighted tears in Harry's eyes. As he had been want to do for years, the Boy Who Lived always used Japanese honorifics whenever he spoke of his adopted relatives in that nation. "Yes, it is good that Captain Itō has come back to rejoin her sisters and fleet mates after so many years alone and away," the headmaster said with a comforting smile before it then slipped. "Ronald, your interactions with Commander Boelyn and her fleet mates over the last couple of years would give you a good estimate of how powerful Captain Itō is. Would she be a danger?"

Ronald Weasley blinked before he shrugged. "Aircraft carrier?"

"Midway-class size," Kevin Entwhistle, one of the other muggleborn students in Harry's cohort, then declared with a warning look. "And her crew got a tonne of experience dealing with Abyssals before she became a shipgirl."

"She personally took off the heads of a tonne of installation princesses after she did get turned into one; that's what Miss Naka's podcast about Yonaga's return earlier today told me," Justin Finch-Fletchley added. Like other muggleborns, the banker's son from Lincolnshire had been befriended by British shipgirls over the previous couple of years. With that came chances to obtain technology such as wireless Internet-capable laptops that were hardened by shipgirl magic, which made them sturdy enough to withstand the environment of a place like Hogwarts. This had been part of a secret campaign ordered by the leadership of the Royal Navy to help prepare the country's magical population for when the Statute of Secrecy was going to finally come down whenever either the Abyssal War ended or something stupid happened that made the revelation of that secret inevitable. In the wake of an attempted _**alien invasion**_ a year ago in Japan, the idea of keeping such an archaic treaty going just didn't make sense anymore in the halls of power worldwide, especially given the instances of what could traditionally be seen as "magic" that rocked Tomobiki over the last year. Given the ultimate power over magicals worldwide was actually vested in normal heads-of-state like the Queen — a fact of life that had been conveniently forgotten by too many — the continued existence of local ministries and departments of magic now hanged by very slender threads.

And given how much people had bungled things before the shipgirls came...!

"Um, Headmaster, if the Lady Chennalton's existence sort of caused this mess — even if it was clearly masked as Blaise said — couldn't we ask Lady Erinsville or any of her sisters to intervene directly before Lady Yonaga gets involved?" Draco Malfoy then asked. As the others from Slytherin here today nodded in agreement and Severus Snape smiled in approval of his godson's willingness to use his wit in this manner, the young heir of the Malfoy Clan of Avebury then added, "I mean, I don't fully understand shipgirls like Ron or any of the muggleborn do, but I know aircraft carriers can hit from very long distances."

"And if Lady Yonaga has personally killed Abyssal _**princesses**_...!" Pansy Parkinson added with an involuntary shudder, which was calmed down when Daphne Greengrass squeezed her hand in support. She remembered what happened when young Hoppō had come by Hogwarts after that silly incident with the troll at Hallowe'en. Given that particular sea spirit had just been a child, the younger heiress of the Parkinson Clan of Keerford shuddered to wonder as to what _full-grown_ Abyssal princesses were like. And that made her wonder how powerful this Yonaga was. "I don't want her anywhere close to Dad!"

"Nor do we want them near any of our parents, Pansy," Blaise warned.

"That may be inevitable."

Eyes locked on Harry. "What do you mean, Harry?" Hannah Abbott asked.

A tired sigh escaped him. "I still sometimes find it hard to understand what being Japanese is really about," the Boy Who Lived and the unofficial leader of his cohort at Hogwarts stated before he gave his friends who had relatives in the Wizengamot sympathetic looks. "But if you're all able to persuade your dads to pull your families' support from Fudge, do it quickly!"

Everyone stared at him, quickly noting the warning tone in his voice. "Why, Harry?" Theodore Nott demanded.

"Because Yoiko-obasan will _**kill**_ the man — and this Umbridge, too! — for their insult to the Heavenly Sovereign, Theo!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Kokutai..."

Eyes locked on Hermione. "What's 'Kokutai'?" Neville Longbottom asked.

"'National structure' is what it directly translates to, Neville," the dentists' daughter from Crawley near London explained, glad to finally explain this unique part of her friend's adopted country. "It's a belief structure that came into vogue in Japan during the Meiji Restoration in the Nineteenth Century as a way of holding the country together as it modernized to keep European powers from messing things up like they did in China. This made people see themselves as part of a vast social order, with the Heavenly Sovereign at the very apex. Like our loyalty to the Crown...but magnified to degrees we could NEVER imagine!"

Hermione took a deep breath. "Lady Yonaga's crew — and thus, Lady Yonaga the shipgirl — were raised to believe this social structure was right and proper since it guaranteed national unity and it would totally destroy any attempts by the European powers to impose their influence on Japanese citizens. All loyalty to the Heavenly Sovereign above all else. Because of that, all who saw themselves truly bound to the concept of Kokutai would NEVER stand for such an insult to be made against the Heavenly Sovereign! And all because they have magic and the Heavenly Sovereign doesn't?!" She shook her head. "I've read all the stories people here have written about Lady Tsukuyomi!" As several of the purebloods in the room shuddered on hearing the common-known style name given to Yomigawa Tsukiko by the Heavenly Sovereign's own late father in 1930 when she was made Japan's last Supreme General of Magic, the dentists' daughter said, "And yes, I've talked to Harry about what she's really like! You people KNOW how hard it was to defeat the Greater East Asia Liberation Army during that war!

"Imagine Lady Tsukuyomi...as a _**shipgirl**_. That will be Lady Yonaga."

People's jaw dropped. "Bloody hell...!" Ronald breathed out.

"Someone better send an owl to Tadoussac," Susan Bones warned.

Grim nods from the others in the room...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Romanization of Russian Cyrillic is done in a modified Scholarly form to avoid the breves:

 **А** = a, **Б** = b, **В** = v, **Г** = g, **Д** = d, **Е** = e, **Ё** = jo, **Ж** = zh, **З** = z, **И** = i, **Й** = j, **К** = k, **Л** = l, **М** = m, **Н** = n, **О** = o, **П** = p, **Р** = r, **С** = s, **Т** = t, **У** = u, **Ф** = f, **Х** = kh, **Ц** = ts, **Ч** = ch, **Ш** = sh, **Щ** = sch, **Ы** = y, **Э** = è, **Ю** = ju, **Я** = ja

In Russian, the "j" sound is similar to the "y" in in " _ **y**_ _esterday_ ". The Russian **Ы** is pronounced like the "oo" in the Southern American English pronunciation of " _g_ _ **oo**_ _d_ ". This is why I use "j" in lieu of "y" with "Ё", "Й", "Ю" and "Я".

In Russian, **Ь** represents the " **soft sign** ", where the previous consonant is spoken with the tongue close to the hard palate at the roof of the mouth; this is called **palatalization**. In Romanized Russian, it's always represented by a single quote mark " **'** ". The very rare **Ъ** represents the " **hard sign** ", a separation orthographic device that shows a syllable break, usually before letters such as Я, Ю, Е or Ё. This second letter is a rare one, having fallen out of favour after 1918 and a massive reform of the language done in the wake of the Russian Revolution, though it is still used. It's Romanized as a double quote mark " **"** ".

Finally, an acute accent over a vowel marks the stress point in a multi-syllable word.

When writing Western or Japanese words as they're pronounced in Russian, I use the proper Cyrillization of the word in question. For example, the Japanese "h" has no equivalent in Russian, thus it's always rendered "kh".

Translation list: **Dóbroe útro** — Good morning; **Továrischi** — Plural of **továrisch** ("comrade"/"adventuring companion"); **Rossíjskij Imperátorskij Flot** — Imperial Russian Navy; **Dobró pozhálovat' v zalív Sanó** — Welcome to Sano Bay; **Ty govorísh' po-Rússki** — You speak Russian?; **Ja byl v Sibíri sém'desjat-pjat' let** — I've been in Siberia for seventy-five years; **Ródina** — Motherland; **Nekul'túrnye mónstry** — Uncultured monsters; **Dévochka-korábl'** — Fleet girl; **Maguro-sashimi** — Raw bluefin tuna meat; **Azarashi** — Seal meat; **Nori no tempura** — Fried seaweed in batter; **Ch'uokyek** — Heavenly dragons; **Teitokukan Yonjū-kū** — Imperial Special Agent #49; **Y** **ūjo** — Harlot/Prostitute; **Kempeitai** — Military Police Corps; **Denka** — Your Highness; **Daijō-tennō** — Retired Heavenly Sovereign; **Heika** — Your Majesty; **Hakase** — University professor; **Nimmib** — Verbalization of the initials NMMB ("non-magical magic-born"), the Canadian term applied to a squib; **Tensei-ryū** — School of the Star of Heaven.

Russian short terms:

 **Gosdúma** — **Gosud** **á** **rstvennaja Dúma** ("Federal Parliament"), the lower house of the Russian Federation's national legislature  
 **LK** — **Linéjnyj Kor** **á** **bl'** ("ship of the line"), Russian ship type name prefix for a dreadnought battleship; unlike other nations, Russia does not use a unified service ship prefix  
 **NKVD** — **Naródnyj Komissariát Vnútrennikh Del** ("People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs"), the internal security and external spy agency of the Soviet Union during Iósef Vissariónovich Stálin's reign (1924-52)  
 **NKMD** — **Naródnyj Komissariát Mágicheskie Del** ("People's Commissariat of Magical Affairs"), the name of the Soviet Union's magical government from the October Revolution to after Iósef Stálin's death (1917-52)  
 **Gamájun** — Short for **Akadémija Volshebsvá "Gamájun"** ("Gamájun Magical Academy"), one of the two main magical schools in the Russian Federation, located close to the Kárskoe Sea north of the Ural Mountains

Names and patronymics:

 **Ivónna Víl'jámovna** — Yvonne, daughter of William  
 **Jásuko Séiitovna** — Yasuko, daughter of Seiichi  
 **Galína Vladímirovna** — Galína, daughter of Vladímir  
 **Jóiko Khirósiovna** — Yoiko, daughter of Hiroshi  
 **Negáko Khirósukova** — Negako, daughter of Hirosuke

The **Órden Koschéja** ("Order of Koschéj") is my interpretation of Russia's version of the Order of Merlin. While awarded for the same reasons British and Commonwealth magicals get the Order of Merlin (for both achievement in society and bravery), the inspiration of the Order of Koschéj (established to honour Slavic magicals who fought back Genghis Khan during the Mongol invasions of Russia in the Thirteenth Century CE) influenced the titles of its three levels as noted below:

MO1 — **Velíkij Vóin Volshébnik** / **Volshébnitsa Órdena Koschéja v Pérvoj Stépeni** ("Grand Warrior Sorcerer/Sorceress of the Order of Koschéj in the First Degree")  
MO2 — **Vóin Volshébnik** / **Volshébnitsa Órdena Koschéja vo Vtorój Stépeni** ("Warrior Sorcerer/Sorceress of the Order of Koschéj in the Second Degree")  
MO3 — **Volshébnik** / **Volshébnitsa Órdena Koschéja v Trét'jej Stépeni** ("Sorcerer/Sorceress of the Order of Koschéj in the Third Degree")

And the shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **HMCS Erinsville** — Erin Jane Fingal

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Yūdachi** — Hamamoto Kodachi  
 **THG Taihō** — Ozawa Taeko  
 **THG Naka** — Hashimoto Nahoko

 _ **RUSSIA  
**_ **LK Gángut** — Galína Vladímirovna Jurkévich

 _ **UNITED KINGDOM  
**_ **HMS Warspite** — Charlene Victoria Boleyn

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS West Virginia** — Julia Augusta Pierpont  
 **USS San Francisco** — Michiko Francine Norton  
 **USS Hoel** — Madelyn Elizabeth Hoel  
 **USS Akron** — Jean Charysse Rosendahl  
 **USS Macon** — Allison Hope Dresel  
 **USS Heermann** — Louisa Kistiñe Heermann


	3. Yonaga Deploys to Sasebo

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **On the Shinkan-sen between Kyōto and Fukuoka, Saturday 20 May, late afternoon...**_

"He _**killed**_ himself...?!"

"Survivor's guilt, Kathy."

Hearing that made New Jersey blink as Enterprise's cold analysis of the situation that had befallen the seventh carrier of Operation Z six months before finally sank in, then she sighed. "Yeah, I guess so." She then gazed on Yonaga, who was giving her a flat expression that truly defined the concept of "inscrutable Oriental". "Thanks, Yoiko," the battleship said as she squeezed the taller carrier's shoulder in understanding before she leaned back against the side wall of the bullet train that was racing westward towards the largest city in Kyūshū. Once at Hakata, the small corps of shipgirls who were going to Sasebo would switch to another train for the final leg of the journey. "Damn! I mean, didn't Chennalton...?"

Yonaga shook her head. "Brent-san had become as much a samurai as any of my 'plank-owners', Katharine-san," the carrier stated as the destroyers of Taffy Three all whispered prayers for the late intelligence officer. "He was to my admiral as Miura Anjin, a humble English sailor, was to Tokugawa Ieyasu himself during the early years of the Edo Bafuku." She then sighed. "He knew the risks. He understood it; Teitoku and Yoshi-san taught him well." A light smile then crossed the carrier's face. "He even wrote a beautiful English haiku as his death poem, reading it aloud before he took the tantō to himself...

 _In death, we all die.  
_ _Within the shadow of death,  
_ _Yonaga will rise._

"Interesting play of words," Kaga noted from nearby. "Your ship name is written as 'era of eternity', Yoiko-san. Brent-san clearly was calling upon the Kami to give you the strength to fight on against the enemy your crew didn't have."

"Did Miss Chennalton...um, well...?"

Yonaga looked over at a wary-looking Johnston. "Serve as kaishaku-nin?"

The slender destroyer with the wavy long rusty red hair and the matching eyes nodded as she tried not to get physically sick at this subject. "No, Patricia-san did not, Rose-chan," the carrier then assured, modulating her voice to make the brave warrior whose crew had charged against much superior forces off Samar in 1944 calm down. "By the time it was Brent-san's turn to join his mates in Yasukuni, my kanmusu body was effectively formed. The sacrifice of the last of the crew — Brent-san and Kyōsuke-san among them — was needed to seal the spells Patricia-san devised to ensure their sacrifice was never in vain."

"You were their kaishaku-nin."

That was Moroboshi Ataru, who was now gazing at Yonaga with sadness in his eyes. As Hoel and Heermann cuddled closer to him while they tried not to break down and cry at the idea of a brave American officer doing something like THAT, the carrier sighed. "It was painless and swift, Ataru-san. It was the only right and proper thing after all they had done for me."

"And for humanity," Enterprise quietly lamented.

He took that in, then nodded. "I'm said to be bound to the Sagussan _**god of death**_ himself whenever I put my armour on..."

"Which is pretty wicked armour!" Johnston joked.

The Americans laughed as the Japanese gaped. "Well, save for the face, I would agree," Kirishima then noted. "Though what you have written on your vambraces certain would give me hope when you go kill installation princesses."

"What's on his vambraces, Isabel?" Enterprise asked.

"'Ai to Jijitsu', Yvonne-san. 'Love and fact', though it could also be seen as 'love and truth'." The third of the Kongō-class battleships gave him a knowing look. "Your protest against the fact that someone who deliberately humiliated you in that 'tag race' a year ago actually turned around and declared you her husband without respecting anything you thought about it."

He nodded. "When Nengmek'i-ojiichan transported me from Uru to Okusei, I was soon found by his effective blood-sister Kyech; her full name is Seu-P'ye Yesu-Re Hechnich'-K'ekhech of Ait'uch Nehech..."

"That's a pretty freakin' long name!" Hoel noted.

"True. That's why I liked calling her 'Kyech' when she gave me permission to use that name." At the others nodded, he added, "She told me when she realized I had been moved back in time by Ojii-chan that Lum lied about being married to me. Tagging an Oni's horns in a tag race isn't a marriage tag. She was using my ignorance out of hope to get away from her then-fiancé..."

"The guy who turns into a bull that can even out-eat Anna, you mean," Iowa noted as she flashed an amused look at Akagi.

"Same idiot, Abigail-san. So when I finally tapped into the power that allow me to become the Cyborg, that got stitched on my lower arms." He shrugged. "Onē-san thought it was the Master's odd way of tweaking the noses of the spiritual oni who locked on Lum and all her entourage when they lived in Tomobiki. That was another reason to get them out of that place once and for all. There are over twenty ley lines that intersect in that town. All the spiritual energy there was so great, it amazed Onē-san that some Abyssal didn't find a way to sneak up the Shakujii River to tap into it." He shook his head. "Stupid fools..."

"Who did that anyway?"

He gazed on Yonaga. "What do you mean?"

"Forced this 'news blackout' that blinded everyone in that warren of alien lovers to the realities of the war beyond and blinded all of us to the insanity that rocked that place? Why do that in the first place?"

"Given how much people now blame the Urusians for 'unleashing' the Abyssals on humanity?" Ataru noted. "Especially now that people know about the bomb Lum's 'most faithful' put in that town as a way of making me submit to my 'wife'? Could you imagine what might have happened if some lunatic from the Middle East came to town with a suitcase nuke, some other weapon of mass destruction or with a dufflebag full of machine guns and went on a rampage in hopes of killing the aliens?"

All the shipgirls winced on hearing that, even Yonaga...

* * *

 _ **Nerima, the Tendō home, that moment...**_

" _ **THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO DO THIS!**_ "

Hearing that outraged shriek from her father, a teary Tendō Akane could only sigh. "They just did, Tō-chan. Ran-..." She stopped herself. "Kanami-san had every right to walk away from all this. She did! As far as she's concerned, we can all go to hell..." — here, she focused on her older sister Kasumi, making the current matriarch of the Tendō of Ōizumi wince at that emphasis — "...and if we try to attack her should she go where Taihō-san is based, we'll be shot DEAD!"

Everyone in the living room winced on hearing that. "This is a private affair! The Ministry of Justice had no right to interfere in this!" Tendō Sōun snapped, his whole body quaking in outrage. "You will find Ranko at once and..."

"Kanami," Tendō Nabiki cut in.

" _ **RANKO!**_ " the older man shrieked as a Demon Head formed, he focusing his attention on her to make her submit so his own wishes would be enforced. " _ **THERE IS NO HAYASHI KANAMI, NABIKI! THERE IS ONLY**_...eep!"

He froze as Nabiki gave him a look that could melt lead. "No more loans for booze money, Otō-chan."

As the demon head instantly disintegrated, Saotome Nodoka shuddered. The currently grieving mother looked ready to lash out at everyone because of what she had just learned from Akane, especially the fact that a certain secret that her family had kept since the time of the Greater East Asia War was now effectively out in the open. "Sōun, do something about this disgrace of a child of yours!" she snarled. "She has no right to speak out against you! Make her conform...!"

"Akane!" Nabiki snapped.

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

"Shut up, you over-honoured bitch!" Akane snapped after clocking Ranma's mother with her ki mallet, knocking her out.

Seated nearby in panda-form, Saotome Genma could only shake his head. [ **MUCH THAT I DO LOVE HER, SHE DESERVES THAT!** ] the transformed "master" of the "Saotome-ryū" of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū signed before turning back to his tea.

A sigh then escaped Happōsai. "She should have expected that sooner or later," the aged grandmaster of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū breathed out. "A pity that you were so desperate to remove that curse from your son that you used that incense burner without reading the instructions." Here, he gazed at Genma, which made his transformed student wince. "Negako-chan had the rights of it. Jusenkyō will not be denied THAT way!" He sighed again, a look of honest regret crossing his face for a moment before his normal leering smile came back. "Ah, well. He was a good student even if he was blind to the realities in life thanks to your screwed-up teaching, Genma." As Genma awked on hearing that scathing criticism from his master, Happōsai added, "I'm glad Negako-chan was willing to take Kanami-chan in and make her a student of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū. Even if I could have taken her as a student, my problems would have made it too difficult to teach her things."

[ **A WEAK GIRL DOESN'T DESERVE TO LEARN THE ART!** ] a certain panda signed.

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

"Gee. Some 'weak' girl," Happōsai noted after Akane ploughed her would-be father-in-law into the floorboards with her mallet.

As a moan escaped Genma, Tendō Kasumi took a deep breath. Ever since Ranma's death the previous evening, she had been walking listlessly around the house. Her normal performance when it came to the chores she had done since the death of her mother Kimiko from breast cancer a decade ago hadn't been completed with her usual élan, but the others in the house hadn't commented on it. The death of Genma's and Nodoka's son — tacked onto his body literally _**disintegrating**_ like it did, which left them no corpse to cremate and bury at the family plot in a mountain town in Gunma Prefecture north of Tōkyō — had just rattled everyone. The solution of bringing Ranma "back" through his magically created "sister" — now calling herself "Hayashi Kanami"; having heard that name made Genma use his curse to "hide" himself as his late mother Hayashi Chiaki was scarier than his wife on her worst day — was now effectively dashed thanks to her volunteering to become the "admiral" to aircraft carrier Taihō. Because of that, the dreams of a lot of people in Nerima had just been shattered beyond any hope of repair.

"Well, all we can do is wish Ran-...! Kanami-san the best." Kasumi then rose to get new tea for everyone. "Besides, given how easily the kanmusu forge attachments with their 'admirals', Kanami-san will probably seek Taihō-sama out as her future wife. Since we don't practice polygamy here in Japan and given that Kanami-san would never bed a man given her origins...!"

" _ **RANKO!**_ " Sōun shrieked as a new Demon Head formed. " _ **YOU WILL...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

" _ **DON'T YOU DARE, YOU HONOURLESS MONSTER!**_ " Akane screamed out after smashing her father into the floorboards.

"Hiibā-chan, what can we do?!"

That was Nǚ Shānpú, who was staring in hope at her great-grandmother Nǚ Kělún. As Happōsai stared in veiled sympathy at his would-be wife, the elderly matriarch of the Nǚjiézú shook her head. "No, Shān, it's over. Your husband is dead. And since the Earth Angel has taken Kanami in as her student — in effect, adopting her as a member of the Moroboshi Clan of Mutsu — the Kiss of Death will no longer apply as she is seen as clan-sister now." As Shānpú winced on hearing that and her would-be husband Liào Mùsī tried to duck away from the matriarch's knowing look, Kělún added, "Indeed, the Earth Angel had the rights of it all along. Since this stupid male..." — here, she contemptuously thumbed the stunned Genma — "...used the incense burner in hopes of 'curing' Son-in-Law of his curse, the spirit of Zhòuquán-xiāng delivered its judgement on Son-In-Law by ending his life. Not only that, from what little I did sense of young Kanami after she left this house at Christmas, she has fundamentally changed in ways you will not be able to overcome should you be foolish enough to pursue some sort of revenge on her." She glared at Ranma's parents, making them both wince on hearing that. "Trying to curse Kanami with the power of Zhòuquán-xiāng will be useless now." As the slowly recovering Nodoka and Genma both awked on hearing that there was no way to "revert" Kanami to her "proper" form as a boy, Kělún smirked. "Her blood is now infused with the Atom of True Life in high quantities; even the curse magic of Zhòuquán-xiāng cannot overwhelm that. She also possesses what appear to be very powerful psionic abilities. How she gained all that, I cannot say...but they were sufficient enough to help her put down the Hibiki boy when he tried to attack her once. If either of you try to attack her to adhere to that mad seppuku agreement or some other claim of honour to force her back here, you'll still never get your son back...and you'll risk your own DEATHS if you do that. Kanami is her own person...and her own WOMAN at that!" As Nodoka winced and Genma moaned at the fact that his surviving child was now a weak GIRL, the elder of the Nǚjiézú sighed. "We must prevail on the success of the zhànjiàn shàonǚ if we are to have hope to return to China. Until that time comes, we will remain in Nerima. As for YOU, Mister Part-timer, you better curb your desire for vengeance!" She glared at Mùsī, which made the hidden weapons master duck. "The tribe will not support you if you pursue something so stupid in the future. If Jiànnǚ Taihō has claimed Kanami as her admiral..."

Mùsī rapidly nodded his head. "Hey, Shān, just remember: If you're interested in getting your revenge at your husband's death, here's the cause," Nabiki stated as she waved to Genma. "He was the one who used that burner on Ranma."

As Genma awked in horror on hearing that, Happōsai smirked. "Please go right on ahead, Shān," the grandmaster of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū added as he gazed in veiled amusement at the other man. "I've no need of him anymore."

Hearing that made Shānpú smirk. "You're both too kind."

"Just don't leave blood on the floor, Shān," Kasumi asked.

"Of course!"

Genma yelped in fright, then he scrambled out of the living room as fast as his paws could take him, the young warrior maiden from China who could have been his daughter-in-law in hot pursuit, a pair of butterfly swords in hand. "Good riddance," Kuonji Ukyō muttered as she contemptuously watched the stupid panda flee for his life, then she gazed on Nabiki. "Any idea where Ran...?" She stopped herself. "I mean, any idea where Kanami-chan's going to be based, Nabiki?"

As Nodoka shuddered on hearing that "false" name for her daughter, Nabiki looked over. "You're not trying to go after her..."

"After Taihō caved in Kunō's face?! Not a chance! I just want to know the place I should avoid in the future so I don't risk it."

"Sasebo," Nabiki provided. "Where Yonaga-sama is now based."

As Nodoka and Sōun both yelped on hearing that, the middle daughter turned to finish her tea. "Which means that Kanami will be in range of a REAL samurai, trained in all the classic virtues." She fixed Ranma's mother with a look. "Once she hears of the truth of your ancestry, Nodoka, she'll gladly take her katana — which she's used to KILL Abyssal PRINCESSES! — and sharpen it on your own neck for your dishonour!" As Nodoka croaked at the idea of facing something like that, Nabiki nodded her thanks to Kasumi before she rose to head to her bedroom. "Knock her out and drag her out of this house, Akane-chan," she bade. "I don't want to deal with her ass-backwards attitudes anymore! She has no right to be here now."

"Hai!"

"Wait...!"

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

"Please don't spread blood over the floor, Akane-chan."

"Hai, Onē-chan!"

Seeing this, Sōun collapsed on himself. "The schools will never be joined...!"

* * *

 _ **Downtown Tomobiki, that moment...**_

"Does this look good?"

Taihō nodded in approval. "It's beautiful, Teitoku!"

Hearing that, the beautiful and busty redhead with the bright blue eyes appearing to be about sixteen then smiled before she gazed back at the image in the mirror before her. Nodding in approval, she then moved to step back into the change booth to slip off the beautiful sundress she had selected for herself. "Well, that's enough for today. Once we get everything moved to Sasebo, we can get the stuff we missed. The sooner I'm out of this town of alien-lovers, the better."

"Agreed," the carrier noted as she gazed around the beautiful women's clothing store that Hayashi Kanami had chosen to get some new "civilian" clothing before they would formally transfer to the Sasebo Naval District and fall under the overall command of Admiral John Richardson. While Esmeralda's was a well-stocked shop with a wide selection of apparel for any potential buyer — even the humanoid aliens who had resided in this part of Metro Tōkyō until recently — the fact that far too many of high school years were waking up to the fact that the "mad circus" that haunted their lives for a year was ending...!

Given Kanami's unique origins, having her live a moment longer in this town was probably not the best thing.

Especially given how much her "family" in Nerima was no doubt reacting to the news of Kanami's total rejection of them all...

...which, coupled by the death of Kanami's "brother", would totally destroy the "Wrecking Crew" once and for all time.

 _Good riddance to them all_ , Taihō mused to herself.

Once she was back in her normal red Mandarin tang and track pants — clothes she had put back on her the instant she had resettled herself with Moroboshi Negako's help at the Toranoseishin Finances tower in downtown Tomobiki as a way of thumbing her nose at Saotome Nodoka and her unwanted attempts at trying to make "Tendō Ranko" into some "woman above women" — the new "admiral" for the aircraft carrier headed over to the cashier to make her purchases. Grateful that the Self-Defence Forces gave her a living stipend as she adjusted to her new rôle as a personal morale officer for the armoured carrier — while she could now afford to buy her own clothes since there was no way for Saotome Genma to get his greedy paws on his late parents' fortune, she wanted the money to grow into a tidy nest egg for her to make use of in later years; those funds had been sealed by Hayashi Chiaki's will to ensure none of the loons in Nerima could never use it for their purposes — Kanami intended to do her best to not only push herself to levels that Ranma had long refused to even contemplate, but also help the shipgirl she also knew by the human name "Ozawa Taeko" better adjust to her own new life.

Given what happened to battleship Mutsu recently...

 _Our own 'Dawn of Power' as Tariko would describe it...!_ Kanami mused.

She then shuddered before offering her debit card to the cashier.

No.

Earth was NOT going down Yiziba's dark and blood-soaked path.

No way in hell...!

* * *

 _ **Minutes later...**_

"Man! Ataru was sure right about the rāmen in this place."

Hearing the compliment from the beautiful lady now escorting the reborn version of one of Japan's largest carriers, the owner of the Rāmen Nekohanten perked before he gaped on recalling the name just spoken. "You know Ataru-kun?"

"Yep," Kanami affirmed before slurping up the noodles of the beautiful iekei rāmen that had been made for her. "After he managed to escape that alien bitch that LIED to him back at the Tag Race a year ago, he got fired through a time-warp and sent to a planet where he wouldn't end up causing some stupid temporal paradox or something like that. He eventually learned how much the stupid alien bitch LIED to him about their being 'married', then began working with people to help drive them out of this town. I mean, you people couldn't stand that tiger-cow Seq Rei coming along to eat all your wares, right?!"

That comment made the older man wince. "Damn straight! That thing was just unstoppable at times! Even if the rationing had been lifted in a lot of places thanks to what the Canadian kanmusu were doing, there were still shortages and he was gobbling them all! Sure, it was easy to blame Ataru-kun for it, but after people saw how much Lum-chan didn't care...!"

She gazed coolly at him. "You better make sure that if Yonaga ever comes to town, you curb that attitude about Ataru, Oji-san. She'd take your head off for that insult; his granduncle was Yonaga's junior navigation officer all those years."

All the people listening to this winced on hearing that dire warning. As the news of the seventh carrier of Operation Z was spreading like wildfire thanks to people such as light cruiser Naka as well as Kanami's new martial arts sensei Moroboshi Negako, the fact that the man who "saved" Earth from alien invasion a year ago was blood-related to one of the shipgirl samurai's crew was causing people in Tomobiki to rapidly rethink their attitudes towards the fellow they often saw as a "living cancer" wrecking the peace and tranquility of their town. Never mind Ataru's supposed relationship to the woman claiming to be _**Imperial Special Agent #49**_ , the one who helped enforce Shōwa Tennō's call to lay down arms in 1945 by killing off all the remaining metahuman fighters of the Black Dragon Society and prevent the War Hawks of Canada from sweeping in to paint the country red with blood and perhaps unleash a civil war that would have torn Japan apart like Germany and Korea were.

"Remarkable how easily people were blinded to the truth. Eh, Teitoku?" Taihō mused as she gently slurped up her noodles.

Kanami snorted. "No different than Nerima."

People blinked before several of the younger folk there peered intently at the redhead. While Kanami wore her hair in a simple ponytail these days, it wasn't too different from the way her other-self had styled his hair.

"Holy shit...you're _**Saotome Ranma**_!" one Butsumetsu High student gasped.

"No," she quietly declared as she gave the other man a cool look. "Didn't you ever read on Nabiki's website about what Ranma's father did with that stolen incense burner Happōsai took from the Nǚjiézú? How it created a magical replica of him everyone called 'Tendō Ranko' to make sure that Ranma's fool mother Nodoka never found out about the curse?"

"You mean that whack job who was ready to be a kaishaku-nin if Ranma turned out to be as much a pervert as At-..." Said student caught himself in time. "Um, I mean, as much a pervert as Happōsai-sensei was?"

"The same. I'm that replica, but I don't go by 'Tendō Ranko' anymore."

"My admiral's name is 'Hayashi Kanami'," Taihō frostily warned, making all the people in the restaurant shudder as the carrier seemed to glare at them. "Do remember that. None of us will stand her being insulted that way."

As people nodded, the front door then opened...

"...a tragedy! A tragedy! Why are the Kami conspiring against us?!"

Kanami perked, then she looked over before she moaned. "Oh, great!"

"The four _**traitors to humanity**_ who loved to be plane-guards for Lum?" Taihō asked.

"Yeah...!"

" _ **WHAT DID YOU CALL US?!**_ "

Everyone winced as a wide-eyed Aisuru Satoshi — known more commonly as "Megane" of Lum's Stormtroopers, the warlord's daughter's primary fan club among her now-former schoolmates at Tomobiki Senior High School — literally lunged over to glare at Taihō...before he awked on realizing who he was now confronting. "T-t-Taihō-s-s-sama...!" he sputtered out as his three closest friends all seemed to cringe while they moved to get clear of this shipgirl's potential arcs of fire.

"I call you what people worldwide now see you as, Satoshi-san," the carrier stated as she rose to her full height, which put her a couple inches over Megane and made her equal in height to Shitto Kōsuke, also known as "Perm". "Especially the leaders of the _**Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant**_." As others in the restaurant all gasped on hearing that, Taihō smiled. "They knew the truth of what YOU provoked shortly after the Tag Race that nearly saw all of Earth's oil stolen because you stupidly called down a space taxi in hope of seeing that alien monster." As Megane sputtered in horror on hearing that, Taihō smirked. "Don't depend on us to save you from YOUR selfishness, Satoshi-san. And you better curb that attitude of yours that makes you blame Ataru-san for everything bad that's befallen this town. Yonaga has returned...and she sees him as her own spiritual admiral. She's already marked Ataru-san's fool parents for death due to their betrayal of his clan's core values and the wishes of his late grandmother. She'll gladly come after you and your friends as well for your support of that alien!"

"You're forbidden from coming here again! Ditto with the other 'Stormtroopers' going to that damned school!" the restaurant owner then snapped. As the other students gasped on hearing that declaration and the Stormtroopers awked on hearing the older man come down on THEM like that, he snarled, "I'm not having my place torn apart by some terrorist because of YOU stupid fools! We just got rid of that monster Rei! Taihō-sama, could you please throw these idiots out of here?!"

"Do it. Taeko-chan," Kanami ordered. "Cripple them while you're at it."

"Hai, Teitoku!"

The Stormtroopers all screamed out as the carrier lunged at Megane...

* * *

 _ **Naval Base Kitsap Bangor Annex (west-northwest of Seattle), two hours after midnight (Tōkyō time: Suppertime)...**_

"HALT! Put your wands down!"

"Stupid no-majs! Obliviate the...!"

"Magical suppression fields! NOW! _**BLOCK THEIR ESCAPE!**_ "

" _ **NO!**_ "

A low hum then echoed through the residence located in the southeast corner of the reservation once set aside for America's west coast ballistic missile submarine fleet, causing the beautiful fast battleship to blink as she rose from under the sheets of her bed to gaze outside. Frowning, Washington stood up and walked over to the window of the bedroom to look out onto the lawn she shared with her fiancée...then she scowled on seeing the four people in 1920s period clothing being chained down by mesonium-lined manacles, they being watched by several serious-looking people in Marine Corps combat utility uniforms.

"What's goin' on, Ida...?"

Hearing the sleepy voice of CWO2 Sarah Gale, the second of the North Carolina-class fast battleships sighed as she gazed in amusement at the woman she loved more than her new life as a shipgirl. "Just some rude magical visitors, Dear," the woman known to the yeoman-turned-ship's clerk as Ida Stevens stated with mirth. As Gale's eyes went wide on hearing that, Washington smirked. "The improvements made for the base security force really seems to have helped us, especially from those fools based out of Manhattan who can't see the writing on the wall." She perked on hearing a knock echo. "Ah...!"

As Gale moved to dress, the battleship slipped on a housecoat, then stepped downstairs to the main floor, reaching the door in several long strides. Opening it, she returned the salute of the smiling gunnery sergeant there. "Good morning, Gunny. A little rat infestation this evening?" Washington asked as she gazed in amusement at the trapped magicals on her front lawn nearby.

"Afraid so, Commander Stevens. Ms. Gale, good morning, ma'am," Gunnery Sergeant John Stone said as he saluted the haggard-looking chief aide to Vice Admiral Samuel Williams for shipgirls. "Sorry to bother you this morning."

"Who are they, Gunny?" Gale asked.

"Rogue aurors of the Department of Magic...!"

"Say it right, Scourer!" one of the captured aurors shrilled out. "We serve the Magical Congress of the United States...!"

"Which is your LEGISLATURE!" Washington boomed out, causing the magicals to wince as their eardrums nearly cracked from the force of the battleship's voice. "Your organization of government is the _**Department of Magic**_ , headed by the _**Secretary of Magic**_. There is NO 'magical president', you staleblood idiots!" As the magicals shrieked at this no-maj golem's willingness to support the no-majs' deranged view of relations between America's magical communities with the federal government in Washington — not to mention being called by the horrid insult used for those with multi-generational magical ancestry, which first originated in Canada in 1889 thanks to Dean Raeburn — Washington then smirked as she whispered three words:

" _Novus Ordo Seclorum_."

The magicals suddenly froze before dazed looks crossed their face, as if they had been hypnotized. "You will resign your positions with the Auror Bureau effective immediately, then return to civilian life," the battleship coldly declared. "You will ignore requests from your allies in government and elsewhere to continue this mad assault on non-magical personnel who are shielded by a _**Magical Executive Order**_ from any interference by the Department of Magic. You will never again harm any non-magical unless in self-defence. And you will NEVER trespass on any military base property ever again on pain of DEATH! We are in a WAR situation and certain rights of habeas corpus have been suspended! Now, repeat what I just said."

The four people there moaned out everything the battleship had just ordered. As Gale gaped in stunned awe at her lover's ability to bend magicals to her will like that, Washington nodded. "Let them go, Gunny," she bade.

"Aye-aye, ma'am."

The others of Stone's platoon released the aurors. Once the sergeant of the team confirmed that the magical suppression fields — which also include anti-apparation and anti-portkey spells — were down, the four intruders vanished from the scene. Once that was gone, Gale shook her head. "Was that in the private letter President Bartlet sent you, Ida?" she wondered.

"It was," Washington noted as Stone barked for his team to clean up what mess the aurors had made when they teleported in. "Given the different viewpoints among leaders in the Department of Magic even now, the President and Secretary Quahog decided the best thing to prevent people such as you from being hurt was use a Magical Executive Order that forces magicals in the country to react once that phrase I used was spoken aloud. As I am magical and have the direct authorization of the Commander-in-Chief, no one in the Department of Magic could override my use of that phrase to ruin their lives."

Gale shook her head as the stupidity of this situation sank in. The last time this had happened a half-year ago — which had prompted their moving to married quarters at Bangor from quarters in Bremerton; the submarine base had been magically shielded for years to prevent maniacs from teleporting in to seize the apocalyptic weapons stored here — the former yeoman had been saved by a visiting Kirishima, who was powerful enough to deal with the two rogue aurors who tried to use potions and spells to make Gale break up with Washington. The furor that resulted from that incident had obviously frightened certain leaders of the Department of Magic far more than was initially suspected when Secretary of Magic Samuel Quahog — a retired lieutenant colonel of the magical wing of the Marine Corps, a veteran of Tsukuyomi's War of Liberation, the more civilized magical side of the Pacific Theatre of World War Two — came to her to apologize. No doubt, the leader of America's magical administration himself had got tired of such rogues unleashing idiocy that would only help in bringing the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy down once and for all time...which was pretty useless now since one of the _**War Hawks**_ was magical!

"Using the phrase from the Great Seal?" she then asked.

Stone smirked. "It worked, ma'am."

Gale blinked, then she nodded. "Yeah..." She then perked as something she remembered from when the shouting began came back to her. "'Scourer'?" she then asked as she gazed upon the middle-aged Marine infantry soldier from Massachusetts.

His smile slipped from his face. "Sad part of my family's distant history, ma'am. I'm descent from magical mercenaries who served as law enforcement in the days before the Statute went into effect in 1692. My multi-times great-grandfather was a greedy shit who was happy to see magicals and normals alike sent to the stake to be burned for witchcraft." Shaking his head, he sighed. "He deserved to have the Foresters come down on his ass like they did in the First War."

"'Foresters'?" Washington and Gale asked together.

"Royal Regiment of Canadian Foresters. Their magical militia; the oldest magical combat force on the planet even if they're part-time unless they're called to war by order of the Governor-General. They manned the guns of the battleships like the one that was there for Commander Chihaya's crew when you sank her and her friends to save Commander Leigh Gatch in 1942."

The namesake of the Evergreen State gaped. "Single funnel, four two-gun turrets with eighteen inch Mark A guns...?!"

"Carolina. Second of the Erinsville-class; her sister led the charge at Jutland. She goes by 'Caroline Gervais' when she's not in rigging." Here, Stone gave them an amused look. "Since everyone now knows of Chennalton..."

"Who was that one?" Gale asked. Like many of the people who worked with shipgirls who had active combat careers in that war, she knew of the Dragon Killers, the strange ghosts that always lurked in the memories of many like her fiancée.

"She was there for Captain Itō's sister when she went down off Okinawa in '45. Not to mention the Commanders Fujita and Sumire at Midway in '42 and the girls from Taffy Three off Samar in '44. Commander Chihaya's sister later that year, too."

That made the battleship and the former yeoman gape. "Can you find out if those monsters Carolina and the others hunted are back?" Washington asked. "Do the people in charge of that formation have any idea? We can't have them come back..."

Stone shook his head. "Don't know, Commander. But you patrol close to the west coast base for the RCN's magical service; it's in Smith Inlet north of Vancouver Island. HMCS _Whidbey_ is the name of the 'stone frigate' that's located there."

Washington nodded...

* * *

 _ **Naval Base Kitsap Bremerton Annex, aboard USS**_ **Independence** _ **, an hour later...**_

" _ **YOU GOT HER NAME?!**_ "

A wide-eyed yet very happy South Dakota was gaping in shock at Washington. The latter had been driven down by her fiancée to join her old fighting companion from Task Force 64 aboard her personal pride and joy, the modified littoral combat ship USS _Independence_ , which now served as a mobile repair facility for shipgirls and had been of good use when Enterprise's and Yamato's task force had located Hoppō on Unalaska near the site of Dutch Harbour four years before.

"Both her ship name and her human name, old friend," the namesake of the Evergreen State said as she gazed on the current project manager for DARPA's Advanced Research Group, who had remained at her post when New Jersey was first summoned to battle, rarely if ever going into combat herself with her rigging. "She's based in Smith Inlet north of Vancouver Island. She's Canadian and magical as we've both suspected; we remember the green maple leaf on the funnel that Carolina wore that night. Ditto with the one that was mentioned by His Imperial Majesty in that proclamation he just made concerning Yonaga..."

A worried shudder ran through the mainframes of the namesake of the Mount Rushmore State and the lead ship of her class of American fast battleships, the next in hull number after Washington herself. "Damn!" the woman known also by the human name Dakota Leigh Gatch breathed out. "Guess the Canucks are getting a little sick and tired of being forced to bow to Europe and America all the time because of that secrecy thing of theirs. 'Sides, who'd argue with Emperor Akihito?"

"A lot of people would do that in a flash, Dakota," Sarah Gale said after she walked into the cabin for the shipgirl research team leader, a tray with cups of Navy coffee in hand for her fiancée and her old fighting companion; she caught the last part of that comment. "Including a shit ton of magicals. Those four idiots that tried to come after me today didn't give a damn that there's something a lot more important going on these days than helping keep them masked from 'no-majs'."

Dakota snorted as she took the offered cup before Gale served her fiancée, then moved to sit down on the nearby bunk. "Well, with Yonaga back, people won't be stupid to try to attack the Emperor head on. Not to mention with Miss Negako being around. She's the one who stopped the idiots in the Black Dragon Society from starting a civil war after Emperor Hirohito called it quits in 1945. I doubt a bunch of wand-waving idiots would slow someone like her down."

"Especially with the way native magicals view Miss Negako," Washington noted with a smirk.

The other battleship grimly nodded. Despite the problems America's fighting shipgirls had with agents of the Department of Magic, they had been treated with the highest levels of respect and support by magicals from the many native American nations within the Union. Given their unwillingness to make use of focuses like wands to channel their abilities, they were never tracked by aurors whenever they used their powers in the presence of "no-majs". In Dakota's and Washington's experience, such people always viewed the "angels of the great waters" with the respect they were due because of their own abilities and the need to have shipgirls go forth to defeat the dark demons of the abyss and save humanity. This was especially true of the new generation of Navajo, Cherokee and Choctaw code talkers who had volunteered to teach shipgirls their languages for use in communications while out on the open ocean; even if Abyssals had yet to find some way to break into digital signals, it was better being safe than sorry. Most of them were magical by the traditional definitions, but they never had wands and never cared for the "staleblood idiots" running things for white wand magicals out of downtown Manhattan.

During most of the last year, a stealth warrior from the darkest moments of Imperial Japanese history began to make the rounds, locating alien spies from a planet named Phentax Two to have them removed from Earth so that the true nature of the Abyssal War couldn't be relayed to leaders on planet Uru who might want to press an invasion of the planet despite what Moroboshi Ataru did a year ago near the Tomobiki Sportsplaza. While not physically strong like a shipgirl, the reborn Imperial Special Agent #49 had gone through those schmucks like a knife through melted butter, making them disappear with help from new alien friends from planets Noukiios and Yiziba before they could have caused a stupid hostage scene that might have provoked an intergalactic incident. Dakota knew of two incidents where American aurors tried to stop Negako when she got too close to magical residents. According to the FBI's records on those incidents, the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū swatted the aurors aside like they were ants, disabling their magic with shiatsu strikes before going in to deal with the aliens. Given the revelations about that anti-matter bomb which had been buried in Tomobiki that had been "returned to sender" to wreck the Niphentaxians' battle fleet thanks to a handy space-warp a month ago, Moroboshi Negako's requirement for stealth was understandable; even if the woman had a MILLENNIUM of knowledge thanks to how she came into being, the fog of war applied as much to special operations missions as it did straight up battles on the field, in the skies and on the seas.

"So what do you want to do, Ida?" Dakota wondered.

Washington gave her a knowing look. "We've all wanted to meet her, Dakota. You know how much Isabel thinks of that one. Besides, are the sea leviathans that Caroline and her friends were built to hunt down out there somewhere?"

That made the other battleship shudder. "Possible relation...?"

"We need the knowledge."

"Yeah...!"

* * *

 _ **London, the Leaky Cauldron on Charing Cross Road, that moment (local time: An hour before lunch)...**_

"Are those bloody idiots INSANE?!"

Hearing that outraged shout from the aged proprietor of wizarding Britain's main gateway to the muggle world beyond, the tall and slender blonde battlecruiser looked over from her lunchtime tea. "Is there something the matter, Mister Dodderidge?"

Shaking his head, Tom Dodderidge slapped the morning copy of _The Daily Prophet_ onto the table beside Hood. "Look there, Miss Hood!" he said as he pointed to the banner headline: _**HARRY POTTER FOREVER SAVED FROM SHIPGIRLS!**_

Gaping at something that would have her friends in Japan instantly seeing red — especially Nagato — the only of the Admiral-class battlecruisers to be completed after the end of the Great War shook her head before she took a moment to digest the words there. Naturally, much to Hood's disgust, a certain reporter who used her animagus abilities to spy on many people to get her scoops had composed this missive, using all her quite admirable skills in the English language to inflame anti-shipgirl attitudes among Her Majesty's magical subjects in hopes of "preserving the proper order of things" in the world. "What 'order' are you talking about, you miserable bug?!" Hood hissed as her new gas turbine systems — one of the many improvements she got in her "Mark II" upgrade — began to power up to prepare her for a quick trip down to Northumberland Avenue and the hidden complex under that street where Britain's wand-magical population was governed. "You idiots...!"

"Damn straight about that!" the elderly proprietor of the Cauldron snarled as he moved behind the counter to clean dishes while other people moved to get copies of the _Prophet_ to scan what was there. "Harry was magically adopted by Lady Nagato! It was a proper magical adoption done by Lady Tsukuyomi herself! Professor Dumbledore said it was accepted by Magic Itself! Fudge and those stupid pureblood fools in the Wizengamot are cursing themselves by doing this!"

"No! This has Umbridge all over it, Tom," Doris Crockford said with a snort. "Stupid toad's been railing against shipgirls since they first appeared! How many lives got saved by them when they were summoned at Torpoint and elsewhere?!" She cast her paper aside. "All because Lady Chennalton was mentioned because of this Lady Yonaga that just got found yesterday off Siberia?! Merlin knows, those girls have been doing wonders making sure those sea leviathans stay away from us...!"

"Doris," Dedalus Diggle mused as he indicated the battlecruiser in their midst.

A derisive snort escaped the older woman. "Mary's as magical as the rest of us, Dedalus!" Crockford stated as she made a dismissive wave of her hand. "Merlin only knows, a whole tonne of muggleborns probably helped the muggles bring the shipgirl spirits back, all following the spells Nagi Springfield's boy discovered five years ago that got Lady Kongō and her sisters to beat those monsters away from Tōkyō! All this rot concerning Harry is just Umbridge and the other idiots in the Ministry being jealous of the fact someone taught at _**Meridiana**_ discovered the means to beat those things back! Not to mention Umbridge trying to make the so-called 'wise lords' dance to her tune so she can be Minister one...!"

Footfalls from the direction of Charing Cross Road made people turn...

"Mary!"

Hood sighed. "You better prepare yourself, Luisa!"

Hearing that snapped comment from her old opponent at the Denmark Strait, Bismarck blinked before she moved to sit down beside the other shipgirl. "What's going on, Mary...?" the blonde, blue-eyed Aryan beauty in the black-and-white-trimmed dark grey dress asked...before she looked down at the paper beside her friend's lunch. Picking it up, the German fast battleship took a moment to scan the article there, then she chuckled. "Oh, my! Who just decided to KILL themselves today?!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"What...?" a pale Tom Dodderidge then gasped.

The woman known to her closest friends as Luisa von Bismarck took a deep breath. "Harry's magical adoption was supervised and facilitated by the last _**Supreme General of Magic**_ that Japan's ever known," the adopted member of the family of the famous Iron Chancellor that had unified Germany in 1870 coldly warned. "She was placed in that position by the Heavenly Sovereign of that nation in 1930 and could be recalled to that post if the current Heavenly Sovereign felt it necessary! To the people of Japan, the Heavenly Sovereign is no different than the POPE here in Europe!" As jaws dropped, Bismarck shook her head before she smiled when a house elf popped in with a cup of her favourite coffee. "To defy his wishes back in the days before the war was seen as _**treason**_. Insulting Lady Tsukiko is insulting the Heavenly Sovereign in many people's eyes.

"Including the _**Angry One**_!"

People instantly turned white on hearing that ominous prediction...

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, an hour after supper...**_

"Three cheers for Yonaga! _**HIP-HIP..!**_ "

" _ **HOORAH!**_ "

" _ **HIP-HIP...!**_ "

" _ **HOORAH!**_ "

" _ **HIP-HIP...!**_ "

" _ **HOORAH!**_ "

As a wild wave of applause escaped the assembled naval personnel, civilian dependants and their co-workers now standing by the front gate of the combined base for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force and the United States Navy, John Richardson braced himself before he walked up to stand at attention before Yonaga, now gazing impassively at him. "Captain Itō, welcome to Sasebo," the Virginian stated as he gave her a perfect Annapolis salute. "We're honoured you're here."

Yonaga returned that with grave dignity, which made the people gazing upon her gape at such a show of iron discipline from the Angry One, a being believed by many who had heard the stories of her actions to be as vicious as the monsters she fought. "Fifth of the Yamato-class, first commissioned into the service of Tennō during a terrible time for all humanity, I am Yonaga, Richardson-shōshō. Once, we were enemies. Today, we are allies to forever cleanse the yōma from the seas to restore the peace of the world. We face an enemy of the dark that threatens to destroy all. As the _Hagakure_ always demands of all samurai, know my mind is tranquilized to earthly desires and I will always face the enemy with a clear soul, ready to embrace death if the Fates declare it is my time. Know also I will obey the tenet your gallant countryman Robert Edward Lee-taishō demanded of his brave warriors even after they suffered the shame of Gettysburg: I will NEVER show my back to the enemy!"

" _ **YONAGA BANZAI!**_ " one aged local man screamed out.

A rolling howl of approval escaped the locals; Yonaga had spoken those words in a more classic turn of Japanese than what Richardson was familiar with, though he got the gist of her words. As Mutsu gazed expectantly on the father of her coming twins, the Virginian smiled. "I assume your admiral was a graduate of an American university, Captain. Much that we've long suspected your crew had always followed the teachings of all the great masters of Japan, that you just said _**that**_...!"

She nodded. "My admiral had the esteemed honour of being a Trojan, Richardson-shōshō. He attended the University of Southern California for his masters in English. I've heard through friends from Canada that many of the kanmusu serving Her Majesty and bearing the flag of the Dominion study for their own university degrees when they can spare time. If the Fates are kind when this war is finally won, I might take the chance to follow in my admiral's footsteps and study at that school."

"Ma'am, they'll welcome you with open arms," he bade. "Quartermaster, pipe the captain aboard, please!" he then ordered the chief of the guard detail standing by the gate, he flanked by a row of boatswain's mates, their calls in hand.

"Aye, sir!" The quartermaster rang the bell hanging off the guardhouse. "Pipe the side!" he barked out to his companions.

The boatswain mates shrilled the still as the quartermaster's mate called out over loudspeakers, " _ **COMAIRFLEET ONE, ARRIVING!**_ " The bell was rung twice. " _ **COMCARDIV SIX, ARRIVING!**_ " The bell was rung twice again. " _ **COMNAVAIRFLOT SIX, ARRIVING!**_ " Yet again with the bells. " _ **YONAGA, ARRIVING!**_ " One last ringing of the bell.

Yonaga looked a little dizzy at such a strange greeting...

* * *

 _ **The base cafeteria, moments later...**_

"Onē-sama, are you alright?"

Yonaga was trying not to shake her head, though she was nibbling on the very nicely-cooked rice prepared for her by the base's victualling staff, they supervised by a scowling African-American senior chief culinary specialist from Harlem named Joseph Garza, who wanted to make sure that the base's new shipgirl got "decent home cooking" after living on "short rations" for so long. The Japanese members of his staff were happy to respond to that request. "All those weird terms the quartermaster said when I was piped aboard," she said as she gazed at Yamato, who was seated close to her sister, with the others of their class seated protectively close to them. "Yvonne-san, please, for the sake of my sanity...!"

"She's actually SANE?!" New Jersey teased.

Laughter escaped some of the American shipgirls while some of the carriers from the Kidō Butai looked scandalized at the perceived insult towards their friend's more than understandable confusion. "Sorry about that, Yoiko," Enterprise said as she gave the other carrier a pitying look. "Even if your admiral is a fairy now, he DID hold the planned position as Commander of the First Air Fleet for the attack on Pearl; Admiral Nagumo was only in temporary command until Admiral Fujita finally came onto the scene." At Yonaga's nod, the second of the Yorktown-class carriers added, "He also held the post of Commander of the Sixth Carrier Division given the uniqueness of his base command. Captain Aoshima was the commander of the Sixth Naval Air Flotilla and Captain Ogawa was your commanding officer. It still has to be respected...but we say it these days using abbreviated short-terms we use for radio communications when we pipe someone of flag rank aboard."

"Even confuses the heck out of US at times!" Johnston noted from nearby as the others of Taffy Three wolfed down their food to properly top up their tanks and magazines even if no mission was planned. "It wasn't _**that**_ crazy back in our day!"

Yonaga rolled her eyes. "Praise the Kami! I'm not alone...!"

"Yonaga-san!"

She perked, then looked over...

...before what she immediately recognized as the human form of one of the Sendai-class light cruisers came up to her, a smile that nearly threatened to outshine the light of Amaterasu Herself now on her face. A grinning pair of Maritime Self-Defence Force seamen carrying portable camera equipment were right in the shipgirl's immediate wake; they quickly moved to set it up close to the carrier as the light cruiser spun around to face the lens. As the crowd inside the cafeteria quieted down, one of the seamen tapped a control on a box-like device on his left hip, allowing what sounded like modern pop music to blare over the scene. As Jersey shook her head and Iowa smirked in anticipation of Yonaga's reaction to this aspect of modern Japanese society, the other seaman manning the camera flashed a thumbs-up to the cruiser in her frilly orange dress with underlying black skirt, which would expose her panties to the whole world were even the slightest draft catch the fabric the right way.

"Hai! Idol of the fleet, Naka-chan here!" the cruiser called out before she waved behind her towards the wide-eyed carrier. "Here we are at Sasebo, ready to introduce to the whole world the newest defender of humanity, the Seventh Carrier of the Kidō Butai and fifth of the Yamato-class, Yonaga herself! Isn't she the perfect samurai, no different than her fleet mates?!" As her camera crew and others in the cafeteria whooped in delight while many of the Americans present all got to their feet to give the carrier a standing ovation, Naka pumped her fist to the air. "With her here now, we all know we're going to win!"

A roaring scream escaped the crowd in the cafeteria, making Yonaga gape in total shock at how much the concepts behind rallying the troops had changed over the years. Still, the more tactical side of her mind was quick to note how effective this was. Listening to shortwave and AM broadcasts over the years during her entrapment in Sano-wan, her crew bewailed the loss of the sense of Kokutai among the people of Japan as it strove to rebuild from the wreckage of the Greater East Asia War and propel itself to a place of financial and economic superiority, even over America. Yet a new form of Kokutai seemed to have risen in its place, one where people obviously still obeyed one core tenet of the _Hagakure_ : Living life to the fullest...

...for one never knew when it was going to end.

«I lament this.»

Yonaga perked before gazing at a depressed-looking Arizona, who was seated properly at the table next to Kaga, a regretful look now on that scarred yet beautiful face. The battleship had sent that signal through lamps that flashed in her eyes, which the carrier's lookouts picked up on immediately. «A curious comment, Sonia-san,» Yonaga flashed back.

«She's not the only one who thinks that way.»

That was New Jersey. «What do you mean?» Yonaga wondered.

«When I first met Nahoko after I was summoned, the first thing I asked Arthur was what the fuck did we do to your country?»

A wry smile crossed the carrier's face. «At least you regret such, Katharine-san...»

" _ **SPEECH! SPEECH! SPEECH...!**_ "

That made the capital ships all perk as that chant rolled over them before they looked over to see the human staff, Japanese and American alike, screaming that one word at Yonaga in their native language. Seeing that, the carrier felt her pale cheeks redden at that show of support from people who now saw themselves dependent on HER to save them all from the monsters of the deep she and her crew had fought for five years straight without letup. As Yamato and Musashi squeezed her shoulders in support and all the carriers present applauded to cheer her on, Yonaga then sighed as she rose from her chair, moving with grace and dignity towards Naka; seeing that made everyone get to their feet as they howled and screamed their support.

After a moment, the noise quieted down as people focused on Yonaga. Steeling herself as her whole crew fed their own strength into her hull to allow her to do something she honestly wasn't prepared to do at such short notice, the carrier hummed as she considered what to say. A whispered suggestion from the spirit of the one American whose blood forever sealed her fate six months ago — met with a knowing smile from her admiral — made her gaze on the light cruiser at her side. "Naka-dono," she declared with proper dignity, making the third of the Sendai-class cruisers tense. "In performing your duties for Tennō to bring cheer to our fleet mates, our honoured guests from other lands and the people of the world, have you, during your travels, learned of the group of bards from the noble Kingdom of Sweden calling themselves 'Sabaton' as a group?"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _Sabaton_...?" Fubuki gasped from a nearby table.

"Poi! She's a fan of _**Sabaton**_?!" Yūdachi hissed out.

Mutsuki breathed out, "Sugoi...!"

"Um...ah...h-hai!" Naka sputtered before a concerned look crossed her face. «Not 'Shiroyama'...?» she flashed by lamp.

Yonaga flashed her a stern look even if no ordinary human would be able to pick up on it. "You are aware of all their tales that speak well for the many battles of history which attracted their interest, especially in their latest work, _The Last Stand_?"

"Hai!"

"Do you have a recording of the ballad they composed concerning the Battle of Vienna in 1693?"

Naka blinked as her mind flashed through her considerable listing of songs from that particular power metal band before she nodded. A quick glanced to her sound man got her a thumbs-up in reassurance; he was ready to play the song in question just requested. "Hai!" she asserted as she steeled herself, raising steam in her boilers to prepare herself to sing her guts out.

"Then let all our fleet mates and friends hear it!"

"Hai!" Naka said before she thrust her free hand to the air.

" _ **WHEN THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED!**_ "

Destroyers, some cruisers and a lot of both Japanese and American sailors screamed out as the trumpet and electric guitar fanfare began the song Yonaga requested. Naka was joined by Enterprise and Zuikaku as all three bounced the music...

 _A cry for help in time of need,  
_ _Await relief from the Holy League,  
_ _Sixty days of siege;  
_ _Outnumbered and weak!_

 _Sent a message to the sky,  
_ _Wounded soldiers left to die,  
_ _Will they hold the wall  
_ _Or watch the city fall?_

 _Dedication!  
_ _Dedication!  
_ _They're outnumbered fifteen to one  
_ _And the battle's begun..._

Yonaga's powerful voice, echoed by her sisters, then boomed over the cafeteria:

 _Then the Winged Hussars arrived!  
_ _Coming down the mountainside!  
_ _Then the Winged Hussars arrived!  
_ _Coming down, they turned the tide!_

As everyone whooped and clapped to the music, the carrier could only smirk...

* * *

 _ **The carrier dormitories, nightfall...**_

"A curious choice of song, Yoiko-san."

Hearing that made Yonaga smirk before sipping the tea that Shōkaku prepared for her. She was sitting seiza next to her new futon, gazing out at the courtyard formed around the expanded kanmusu quarters for those currently based at or who frequently visited Sasebo, a tranquil look on her face. "Something Kyōsuke-san always advises me, Kanako-san," she said as she gazed on Kaga, who was seated to her port. "'Always keep them guessing'. Keep your internal spiritual balance..."

"But never become too predictable," Enterprise finished. The American carrier was now relaxing at the work table set off against one wall close to the door. "You would have been one hell of a nut to crack in the war, Yoiko."

"As were you, Yvonne-san," Yonaga returned. "You had the blessings of all seven Christian saints who watch over sailors in that war. I can't tell you the amount of times my crew swore vengeance on you for all your victories in that war."

"Do you blame us?"

"No," the seventh carrier noted. "Still, when the crew learned what Bartlet-hakase ordered you, Dakota-san and the others to do after you were summoned at Great Lakes four years ago, they all worried for your karma. Especially given how much you had to hide yourselves being close to other kanmusu after being isolated for so long. It's a miracle that Katharine-san's fiancé was able to finally pierce the veil that kept your fleet mates from answering the call to arms..."

"It's a wonder you didn't resign because of that!" Hiryū darkly muttered.

Enterprise's blue eyes narrowed. "I'm no quitter, Hiyoko."

"Which is your greatest attribute, Yvonne-san," Kaga noted before sipping her own tea. "Much has changed, yet much has remained the same. Especially when it comes to human nature. That song you had Nahoko-chan sing for her podcast spoke of victory against long odds, Yoiko-san...yet it also spoke of vengeance, which will inspire us all to seek it on our enemies like the Forty-seven did against that fool Kira to avenge their fallen lord. Well chosen, my friend. My compliments."

"I never cared for metal music, Kei-san. Too much screeching. But when my crew heard their songs while operating in the Norwegian Sea two years ago — this was after _The Last Stand_ was released — my admiral approved of it. Their knowledge of history is profound, even when they released the song about the downfall of Nanshū-sensei and his troop at Shiroyama."

"We'll have to keep in mind the real lessons of that song," Sōryū noted.

"Spoken to the choir, Sei-san," Zuikaku noted.

Grim nods from the others...

...then a polite knock echoed from the door. People's heads snapped over to behold a beautiful silver-haired woman standing there, dressed in her normal white-and-black dress with red highlights, a framed and stylized black Eisernes Kreuz as used these days by the Bundeswehr of the Federal Republic of Germany displayed proudly on her tie. As all Westerners did when they came inside a building, that country's first ever aircraft carrier had slipped off her white peaked cap with the bridge wing like extensions that would stick out from the area of her temples. "Guten Abend, meine Freunde," Graf Zeppelin called out as she bowed politely to the others. In her gloved hands were archery quivers filled with Japanese airplane arrows.

"Oh, shit! Beware Germans bearing gifts!" Enterprise joked.

Laughter from the other carriers as Zeppelin gave the American an annoyed look. "So what did those maniacs in Airbus come up with now, Amélie-chan?" Zuikaku asked as the German carrier slipped off her shoes, then placed them beside Yonaga's zōri before she sat on the upper deck. "Did you finally get hold of some decent 190s so you could land those 109s finally?"

"Even better, Suzue," the namesake of the inventor of the first rigid airship — her human name to closest friends was Amélie von Zeppelin — stated as she moved to sit seiza next to Kaga, earning her an approving nod from Yonaga. "I can now ship two staffeln of Me-262s, both in Schwalbe and Sturmvogel versions. That allows me to keep a staffel of FW-190s and a staffel of Ju-87s as a reserve force to defend myself." She then sighed as the other carriers gaped in delight on hearing that the German would be launching JETS now. "The summoning attempts for my sisters still hasn't produced any success, though..."

Sympathetic looks cross the others' faces. "Don't give up hope, Amé," Enterprise then soothed. "They were never laid down, not like Yoiko's sister Izumi was. Even if there have been times planned ships have been summoned..."

"It is hard to adjust to such a different way of religious thinking when it comes to what we are," Zeppelin finished as she gave the former intelligence officer a knowing look. "Be warned, Yvonne; I'm here to also try to talk Catarina back into service with the Bundeswehr. Much that we all understand her feelings of shame concerning the HaShoah, Luisa misses her dearly. Ja, Antonia, Karoline and Frida have tried to take her place, but Luisa feels naked without Catarina at her side."

"Luisa is Bismarck, correct?" Yonaga asked.

"Ja!"

"And the others you mentioned, Amélie-san?"

"Admiral Hipper, Blücher and Seydlitz," the German carrier immediately answered, sensing a touch of Teutonic precision in the stern voice of this living symbol of Japan's ancient warrior culture given beautiful flesh that was powered by the same mineral that flooded the blood of the Undying Lord himself, a being who had slaughtered DEMONS wholesale twenty-five millennia ago. "By human name Ataru devised for all of us: Antonia von Hipper, Karoline von Blücher and Frida von Seydlitz."

"What of the second Lützow? The one of that class sold to the Soviets?"

"Dóroti — that's her human Russian name, Dóroti Pétrovna Vrángel' — reported to the Admiraltéjstv Kollégija in Sankt-Peterbúrg when our Russian friends began their mass summonings three years ago," Zeppelin reported. "To prevent confusion with Galína's sister Polína, Dóroti adopted the name 'Tallinn'; it was the name she was given when the Soviets finally decided to stop calling Polína after that sick Frenchman from their revolution two centuries ago, then renamed her after a river."

Kaga shook her head. "They just love to rename everything, don't they?"

"Their history is too tortured, Kei. Do you blame them?" the German noted.

The raven-haired carrier took that in, then she sighed. "No, I can't."

"Still, the Estonians must be pleased," Yonaga noted.

"Ja, they are," Zeppelin affirmed as Shōkaku came over with tea. "Danke, Kanako. Dóroti is almost as loved among the people of her namesake city as Nahoko is here. She speaks their language like a native and is being used to help the Estonians rediscover their history as part of the Teutonic League. Some of the idiots in Moskvá are baying because of it since they want to keep Russian moral supremacy over the CIS' shipgirl forces, but Generalfeldmarshall Múrometsa won't listen to them."

"Praise the Kami for that," Sōryū moaned.

"Onii-chan...!"

The carriers all perked, then looked towards the doorway...

"Hoppō-chan!" Zuikaku gasped. "What are you doing here?!"

Instantly reminded of the child-spirit that Chennalton had rescued a year ago from Wrangel Island, Yonaga turned to gaze fully on the living personification of the children of Unalaska who — thanks to her unwillingness to fight alongside her spiritual kin — gave humanity a massive boost in understanding what the demons of the deep were truly about. "Enter, young Hoppō," she bade, making the northern island princess tense before her crimson eyes locked on the massive form next to Kaga.

Hoppō nearly soiled herself on realizing that she was now in the presence of the _**Angry One**_ herself, a being that had killed dozens of abyssal princesses with terrible ease in the last half-year. Even if she wasn't linked to others like her because of her "treason", she could still mentally "hear" their mortal cries of agony whenever the seventh carrier beheaded them with her katana. Before she broke down and cried, what she just learned thanks to a certain white snowy owl made her shudder before her outrage at being forcibly separated from her beloved big brother firmed her resolve. "Stupid stick-wavers making Onii-chan stay away from Mama and Hoppō, Angry One!" she snarled in her broken Japanese. "They no like Mama adopting Onii-chan with help from Miss Black Eyes, then say stupid stick-wavers can love Onii-chan better than Mama or Hoppō do!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Allow me to understand, little one," Yonaga said as an Arctic chill seemed to descend like a shroud over her, making her old mission mates pale in gut-wrenching horror as they sensed the metaphysical Fuji-san of volcanic outrage that was about to erupt from her very human heart. "Your mother adopted young Harry in the eyes of Magic and the Kami with the help of Yomigawa-gensui — _**TENNŌ'S CHOSEN**_ **SHŌGUN** _ **!**_ — and those staleblood fools in England now say 'it's not cricket'?!" She shuddered as a battle aura that made all the other shipgirls gape in awe at such a display of power cloaked her. "How many heads do you desire to see presented to your mother for this gross insult on Tennō and your family, young one?!"

" _ **YOIKO!**_ " Akagi gasped in horror.

Yonaga's grey eyes focused on her successor as flagship of the Kidō Butai. "She is born of death, Anna-san! Even if she is an innocent spirit, young Hoppō understands that far better than normal children her spiritual age do."

As the older carrier winced on hearing that, Hoppō blinked before she seemed to fret. "Hoppō...wants Onii-chan back..." she then burbled before she collapsed to her knees and began to wail, instantly earning her hugs from Zuikaku and Sōryū.

"Care to sample London at this time of year, Yoiko-san?"

As the other carriers gasped on hearing that soft voice with its mixture of eastern Québec and eastern Texas — making Enterprise blink in confusion — Yonaga looked up to see a raven-haired woman in a gunmetal grey sleeveless diver's bodysuit with medium blue sea boots standing at the doorway to her new room. The only marking on her was the pendant number **49** in white on her upper thighs, right where Canadian shipgirls normally wore their identification numbers. A dark red maple leaf was on her left breast, her name in blue letters on a white name tape over the right breast. Possessing the spectacular curves and well-chiselled muscles that marked her as a battleship, she had dark blue eyes and her wavy hair was cut to a taper at the base of her neck, those locks flecked with silver as Yonaga's were. Her face made her appear to be in her early thirties.

"Patricia-san," the carrier greeted.

The other carriers all gaped before they gazed wide-eyed upon Chennalton...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Bafuku** — Literally "tent government", the nickname for the various military governments in Japanese history run by a shōgun; **Kaishaku-nin** — Literally "the one who corrects a mistake", the person who beheads one committing seppuku to end the pain of the disembowelment; **Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū** — Way of Indiscriminate Grappling; **Zhòuquán-xiāng** — Pools of Sorrow (in Japanese, " **Jusenkyō** "); **Zhànjiàn Shàonǚ** — Warship Girls (shortened to " **Jiànnǚ** " as an honorific); **Novus Ordo Seclorum** — A new order of the ages; **Shōshō** — Army major general/Navy rear admiral/Air Force air vice marshal (NATO rank code OF-7); **Eisernes Kreuz** — Iron Cross; **Bundeswehr** — Federal Defence Force; **Guten Abend** — Good evening; **Staffel** — Squadron (in plural, " **Staffeln** "); **Schwalbe** — Swallow; **Sturmvogel** — Storm bird; **HaShoah** — The Holocaust; **Admiraltéjstv Kollégija** — Admiralty House; **Generalfeldmarshall** — Field Marshal General, the German rank title for a field marshal (NATO rank code OF-10); **DMS** — Short for **Deutsches Marineschiff** ("German Navy Ship"), the prefix code for ships of that nation in the universe of this story; **EML** — Short for **Eesti Mereväe Laev** ("Estonian Navy Ship").

American navy short titles:

 **COMAIRFLEET ONE** — Commander, First Air Fleet  
 **COMCARDIV SIX** — Commander, Sixth Carrier Division  
 **COMNAVAIRFLOT SIX** — Commander, Sixth Naval Air Flotilla

The **Warrant Officer** ( **WO** ) ranks in the United States armed forces are specialist officers which are rated between the highest non-commissioned officers and student officers and the lowest commissioned officers. Normally graded to five levels (NATO rank codes WO-1 to WO-5), American warrant officers are highly skilled single-track specialist officers who are normally promoted from the ranks. All the armed services save the Air Force make use of warrant officer ranks and the use of the lowest rank has been discontinued in the Navy and Coast Guard. From highest to lowest:

 **Chief Warrant Officer 5** ( **CWO5** or **CW5** )  
 **Chief Warrant Officer 4** ( **CWO4** or **CW4** )  
 **Chief Warrant Officer 3** ( **CWO3** or **CW3** )  
 **Chief Warrant Officer 2** ( **CWO2** or **CW2** )  
 **Warrant Officer 1** ( **WO1** )

People such as **Sarah Gale** are normally addressed by their co-workers with the basic personal honorifics "Mr"/"Mrs"/"Ms"/"Miss" before their names and are addressed by lower ranks with "sir"/"ma'am". Given her past employment as a yeoman when she was a petty officer, CWO2 Gale would be a **Ship's Clerk** now that she is a warrant officer.

 **Nanshū** is the pen name for **Saigō Takamori** (1828-77), one of the most influential samurai from the late Edo and early Meiji periods. He lead the **Satsuma Rebellion** of 1877, taking charge of disenfranchised samurai who were rebelling against the new imperial government in Tōkyō in protest over imperial reforms that rendered the traditional samurai obsolete. The song _Shiroyama_ from **Sabaton** spoke of the battle where Master Nanshū fell; the site of the battle was near Kagoshima on Kyūshū.

List of shipgirls mentioned in this part:

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **HMCS Carolina** — Caroline Maria Gervais

 _ **ESTONIA  
**_ **EML Tallinn** — Dóroti Pétrovna Vrángel'

 _ **GERMANY  
**_ **DMS Bismarck** — Wilhelmine Luise "Luisa" von Bismarck  
 **DMS Graf Zeppelin** — Amélie Françoise "Amé" von Zeppelin  
 **DMS Admiral Hipper** — Antonia Anna "Toni" von Hipper  
 **DMS Blücher** — Karoline Amalia "Lina" von Blücher  
 **DMS Seydlitz** — Frida Ursula von Seydlitz

 _ **RUSSIA  
**_ **LK Petropávlovsk** — Polína Vladímirovna Jurkévich

 _ **UNITED KINGDOM  
**_ **HMS Hood** — Mary Sonia Hood

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Washington** — Margaret Ida Stevens  
 **USS South Dakota** — Dakota Leigh Gatch

A nod to _**Sasahara17**_ for the name of Battleship X as always!


	4. Incidents at Hogwarts and Juan de Fuca

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, Saturday 20 May, an hour before midnight...**_

"This is an act of WAR!"

Hearing her dusky-skinned sister hiss out that comment, Yonaga could only smirk. "Patience, Mutsuko," the carrier stated, allowing herself to sink into a state of perfect zanshin while she awaited the opening of all the satellite links to connect John Richardson's command with several of his working peers worldwide. Given the current presence of the super-battleship that had helped transform her into a kanmusu six months ago, now in a nearby chair in this briefing theatre, Yonaga knew all her current admiral's peers would want to be in on this conference. "As Yomigawa-gensui and her army gladly taught the European stalebloods in the War of Liberation while you were fighting the normal war, we will crush their petty magic with the power of our determination to enforce Tennō's will and see Reiko-san's son restored to her and Hoppō as quickly as possible."

"Their heads will not all be yours, Onē-sama!" Musashi snarled.

"I will not be too greedy," the carrier promised with an icy smile.

"Link's open with Torpoint, Admiral!"

Heads looked over as Richardson nodded. "Put it on the main screen, Yeoman," he declared. "Good afternoon, ma'am."

"Good evening, John," Vice Admiral Katharine Jones, the Sixth Sea Lord of the Royal Navy and the administrative commander of the United Kingdom's large shipgirl corps, greeted from her private office at HMS _Raleigh_ , the basic training establishment of the service and the place where the spirits of British warships all emerged from the netherworld of the Kami to assume mortal form as kanmusu. "Heard our magical friends under Northumberland Avenue are being stupid again."

"Enough to even allow one of the Dragon Killers to emerge from behind the fog finally, ma'am," Richardson said as he looked over his shoulder at the tall, muscular woman in the dark grey skinsuit. Said battleship was now being flocked over by a dozen wide-eyed destroyers and cruisers from both Japan and America...to say nothing of Yonaga's eldest battleship sister. Not to mention his local counterpart's fiancée, who was trying now to stuff crumpets down Chennalton's throat to top her tanks.

Jones focused her grey-eyed gaze upon the raven-haired monster-hunting warship whose existence had only been a strange series of sea stories shared by shipgirls of the World War Two generation, especially veterans of the Pacific side of that war. Shaking her head in amazement of the fact that her country's once-senior dominion had been able to build BATTLESHIPS — and _**eight**_ of them! — over a period of thirty years, operating them on the high seas to this very day...!

"I've just been briefed by Drake Harlan about you, Captain Chennalton," the British admiral stated, which made all the shipgirls present gape as they looked anew at the second of the Argo-class battleships. "Amazing that he's the great-grandson of the man who saw your sisters built in the first place before and during the Great War to deal with the monsters." As the shipgirls gasped on hearing that Rear Admiral Francis Drake Harlan, Flag Officer Commanding Shipgirls of the Royal Canadian Navy, was descent of the man who first created the Ryūseizen, the native of Kent then chuckled. "We'll be linking with Cornwallis in this conversation, John. Both Admirals Harlan will be there. The elder of the pair is quite the charming man..."

Chennalton gave her a sympathetic smile. "Sadly, widowhood hasn't quelled Papa's romantic feelings, Admiral."

That made the British admiral blush. Even if she was a career woman who never set aside time for a husband and family, she still could appreciate a handsome elder man treating her so courteously. "Er...r-right...!"

"Kitsap and Yokozuka are on line now, Admiral," the yeoman called out. "We'll have Cornwallis and Great Lakes in five."

"Thank you, Yeoman. Admiral Williams, sir?!"

The large screen covering one wall of the meeting room then split into three separate windows, the notations of the source points for the incoming transmissions printed under them. "Good evening, John. Ladies," Vice Admiral Samuel Williams, Commander of the United States Pacific Fleet and Richardson's administrative boss, called back from his office at Naval Base Kitsap's Bremerton Annex. "You have quite the battle record, Captain Chennalton. Our Marine friends across the Hudson just briefed me on your operational history." As Chennalton smirked on hearing that code-phrase used by American sailors and Marines when it came to speaking of the Magical Wing of the Corps — that simply told her that Williams had known the secret of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron all along, only publicly revealing same by order of the President — he added, "A lot of good American and Japanese sailors are alive to this day thanks to your crews' efforts. Once the full story of CANBATRON ONE gets out, you'll be seeing some long-delayed Presidential Unit Citations coming your way for what those good men did."

"The law of the sea demanded no less of any of our crews, Admiral," Chennalton said, which made the Japanese destroyers all gush on hearing that simple and selfless statement from this living icon of all that was right and proper about the metahumans of the Dominion of Canada, magical and non-magical alike. To girls like Fubuki, Chennalton was a shipgirl version of the Protector of All Life and the Grandmaster of the Tensei-ryū herself, Major Dean Raeburn, leader of the famous War Hawks during that horrid time and a warrior truly without equal anywhere. "I'll be happy to spend some time with those shipgirls whose crews mine saved in the Second World War when this mess concerning Commander Yamamoto's son is dealt with..."

"With heads, of course."

The battleship smirked. "You're too bloodthirsty at times, Yoiko-san!"

Yonaga gazed neutrally at her. "I made a promise, Patricia-san."

"I know."

"Well, let's not slaughter the whole damned senior staff of Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic, of course," Admiral Jones called out from Torpoint. "There are the several good department and division heads there who can keep it together."

An incredulous look crossed the battleship's face. "Stalebloods actually trying to keep a magical government together?"

"Poi!"

Heads snapped over to Yūdachi, who had her hand up as if she was in class. "What is it, Yūdachi?" Richardson asked.

"Question, Shōshō: What's a staleblood, poi?"

Yonaga laughed. "That's the common nickname often applied..."

"Cornwallis and Great Lakes linked in!" the yeoman called out.

"Hold on a moment, Captain," Richardson called out. "Link them in."

"Aye, sir!"

New windows appeared on the screen. " _ **TEN-HUT!**_ " New Jersey barked out on seeing two senior-ranking officers on the screens now, one seated in an office at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes near Chicago and the other within the main administration building on the grounds of the recently-reactivated Canadian Forces Base Cornwallis in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. "General O'Neill, sir!" she called out after the other shipgirls snapped to attention. The battleship formally saluted the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Jack O'Neill of the United States Air Force, the man who had become the effective "sea daddy" to Enterprise and her small clique even if he was a former pararescueman before he was elevated to flag ranks.

"At ease, Commander Hyde, everyone!" the smiling silver-haired Air Force officer said before he focused on the one girl in a recognizable RCN shipgirl's skinsuit despite its dark gunmetal grey shade. "You actually hunt dragons, Captain?"

"Even now, General, we're not sure what they are," Chennalton confessed before she then focused on the oldest officer on the screen there, her face forming a smile that made the other shipgirls in the room realize that the Canadian battleship was a lot closer to them than she might seem given her long-standing mission of keeping the magical peace on the high seas. "Hello, Papa," she said in a voice that seemed better fitting to a teenager than the multi-decade old warship she really was.

"Hello, Patty," Admiral Francis William Harlan said with a tender voice as his great-grandson grinned in amusement. "Much that I knew this day would come, try not to force your new friends there to be too close to you. Alright?"

A determined nod answered him. "I'll try to remember that, Papa."

Confused looks then crossed people's faces. "Um, begging the admiral's pardon, but may I ask why you're ordering the captain to do that?" Vice Admiral Gotō Kiichi called out from Yokosuka while many of the shipgirls looked horrified.

The 1886 graduate of the Institute of Science and Magic and the descendant of the first Minister of Magical Affairs for old New France sighed. "I realize it sounds wrong, Kiichi-san. There is a reason I ask this even now that the stories of the magical sides of battles such as Jutland and Leyte Gulf will come out soon. Do you wish to see any of your command, even those as well-armoured as any of Captain Itō's younger sisters, face down the monsters my crews once hunted?"

"She can't go without escort, sir!"

That was Johnston. "Rose-chan...!" Fubuki gasped.

"That's enough, Fujiko-chan," the elder Harlan stated as the younger one tried not wince at his seemingly unsympathetic look at the situation. As the destroyer known to closest friends as Fukushima Fujiko blushed on being called that by this great warrior, Harlan focused on the unofficial leader of Taffy Three. "Rose, tell me something: How thick is your armour belt?"

The flame-haired destroyer blinked. "Um...!"

"We've got no armour, Rose."

That was Hoel, who was gazing sadly at Chennalton. "Still...!" Johnston hissed.

"Rose, listen to me," Harlan then bade, his voice kind and grandfatherly, which made even the more harder shipgirls relax as they fell quiet, compelled to listen to every word he said. "I realize why you and your friends would be motivated to do this for Patricia and her sisters. But the things my ships were built to destroy could easily turn your old ship's hull into metal _**confetti**_ with one swipe of the claws!" As people across the planet winced on hearing that while they listened to this aged sailor — who looked to be in his early sixties even if he was a century and a half old in real time — he shook his head. "Even if your hull was hardened by mesonium as Captain Itō's hull was by the deposits in Sano-wan, I would not trust any ship I didn't see built in Tadoussac with any of my girls. That was their purpose and they fulfilled it wonderfully, even now with our current set of opponents. You have your purpose in life. She has hers. Neither were meant to intertwine, so please leave it be."

Hearing that, the normally scrappy destroyer shuddered before her shoulders seemed to deflate, her eyes tearing. "Who's gonna be there for them?!" she nearly sobbed before she sat down on her chair, trying to not curl up and cry.

Seeing that, Jack O'Neill sighed. "Maddy, Kisty, take her outside and let her get some air," the former pararescueman ordered.

Hoel and Heermann blinked, then they nodded before they moved to walk their sister out of the room. Johnston moved to let them guide her out, then she froze for a moment before turning and running at flank to hug Chennalton from her right side. "Thank you...!" she hissed out to the battleship's faerie crew as she tried not to drop to her knees and scream her outrage at the horrid set of circumstances that forced the great Canadian warship to sail alone on unforgiving seas.

Fubuki moved to guide Johnston away. "C'mon, Rose-chan," the Japanese destroyer whispered. As Richardson and Gotō both nodded on seeing that, the brown-haired destroyer moved to walk her American friend out of the room.

Yūdachi and Mutsuki immediately followed their best friend and the three American destroyers out for some fresh air. Once the door had closed behind them, Richardson sighed. "At ease, everyone. Sit down," he then bade.

The shipgirls all relaxed in their chairs. "So what's exactly happening here, Admiral Harlan?" Williams then asked from Kitsap as CWO2 Sarah Gale moved to sit to his starboard aft. "When Commander Yamamoto adopted Mister Potter as her son, Marshal Yomigawa and Professor Dumbledore both said there could be no objection from anywhere because the very force of Magic Itself agreed to the adoption. How on Earth could the British magical government foul this up so badly?"

"Oh, this is normal for that lot, Samuel," Harlan stated as his great-grandson rolled his eyes. "Given the fact that they didn't suffer badly when Gellert Grindelwald went crazy all over Europe in the early 1940s, our British cousins still think that the current social order that ultimately provoked Tsukiko to do what she did in the Pacific during that time period will keep them alive and safe, allowing them to weigh judgement on even something as 'abnormal' as a shipgirl who presumed she could adopt their latest hero and take him to a 'barbaric' country like Japan." As many of the Japanese shipgirls hissed at that insult, he shook his head, his pale eyes sparkling in amusement at such stupidity. "A lot of things have led to this moment. The fact that a 'rogue' magical from Wales was able to bring forth the spirit of warships to beat the Abyssals back and keep people alive, especially after a decade of constant bloodshed suffered by magical security forces who tried their damnedest to keep things from getting out of control...!" He sighed. "Anyone from Meridiana is not to be trusted in the British ministry; they never went to the 'proper' school — Hogwarts — and their 'love' of 'muggles' flies against the 'proper' order of things. Add that to Mister Riddle's rather noxious little rebellion of over a decade ago, they're feeling as if they have no control over anything now.

"With the fact that more and more normal people are learning of magic thanks to the worldwide spread of shipgirl-based magic, the very foundation of the treaty that kept the peace between magicals and normals for three centuries is pretty much all sand now," the aged Canadian commander added. As Richardson muttered under his breath — " _About time that sparkly magical shipgirl bullshit did something RIGHT for a change!_ " — the former Canadian minister of magical affairs from before and during the Second World War added, "For many, it's a thing that's haunted their nightmares ever since they understood how much the Statute of Secrecy truly impacted their lives. Those of you who went with Harry to Diagon to help buy his school supplies in August before he reported to Hogwarts for his freshman year there should have seen this among the locals. They've been so isolated for so long that they'll not stand a chance once that security barrier comes down."

"How far is Her Majesty from declaring that, sir?" Admiral Jones asked.

Harlan shook his head. "It's inevitable, Katharine. Give it five years."

"Hoppō won't wait five years! Hoppō wants Onii-chan back NOW!"

Heads turned to the shivering Abyssal child now seated next to Enterprise. "Young lady," Nagato's voice then echoed from Yokosuka. "Much that I'm upset at you for sneaking down to Sasebo without telling me, we won't let Harry-chan stay in Scotland one minute beyond the end of his classes next month." As Hoppō winced on hearing her adopted mother's admonishment, Admiral Gotō's chief assistant took a deep breath. "Will there be repercussions about this, Harlan-taishō?"

"What do you mean, Commander?" Harlan asked.

"Yomigawa-gensui said that when Harry-chan magically became my son, there was no force on Earth that could sever that, Harlan-taishō," Nagato stated. "What happens when these fools try to force Harry-chan to remain in Britain?"

"They die."

Everyone gaped on hearing that...

* * *

 _ **Outside Nagasaki, that moment...**_

"Come in, Albus. Tea is on the table."

Hearing that declaration from the still-striking raven-haired woman in the white-and-red robes of a Shintō shrine miko now kneeling in the middle of the haiden of Tenmon-jinja, Albus Dumbledore tried not to chuckle as Fawkes disappeared in a flash of fire. "My thanks. I will not begin to understand how you can sense even someone like Fawkes, Tsukiko," he said as he walked over to kneel beside his host, waving his wand to get the beautiful green tea poured into a cup.

Yomigawa Tsukiko gazed at him with orbs of solid black, even beyond the borders of her once-brown irises. An accident with ebony mesonium when she was studying at Watari-shima in the late 1890s had forever blackened her eyes...though most people who didn't know the truth about Japan's last Supreme General of Magic immediately assumed "metahuman" when they encountered the native of Saga on the streets of Nagasaki these days whenever she went out to do shopping or help with an exorcism. Even now that most non-magical metahumans had stopped wearing the flashy costumes of "mystery men" that had earned them legions of admirers in the 1930s and 1940s, they were seen as a common fact of life on Earth. Thinking on that, the current headmaster of Hogwarts could only shake his head at yet another show of wilful magical ignorance when it came to non-magicals and their having long outgrown the rhabdophobic attitudes that had seen the Statute of Secrecy passed in 1689. If indeed one followed the belief that someone like his own predecessor as Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, Heather Thompkins, was just a type of reality-warping metahuman, the whole need of the Statute of Secrecy was effectively defunct.

But to prepare millions of people who had long been shielded by the Statute for the day it would finally fall...!

"The Kami conspire against us all," the Dark Lady of the Orient said as if she had been reading his thoughts. Then again, her control over her magic had always been incredible, augmented as it was with the mesonium in her blood, which didn't give her immortality as it once gave her old teacher Hosan Hirosuke, but would guarantee a life measured to a MILLENNIUM at the worst of estimates. In a duel, Dumbledore couldn't hope to take Yomigawa down even with the Elder Wand. She had in her possession a mesonium katana named Senkō which had been blessed by Dean Raeburn herself, which could probably rip open the twenty inches of outer main belt armour of any of William Harlan's super-battleships with one slice. She was master-rank in the Tensei-ryū and fought as easily with her body as with her magic. In the War of Liberation, she had been devastating, a razor-sharp katana against her foes as destructive as their contemporary Svetlána Il'ínichna Múrometsa had been thanks to sheer raw power. "You saw it, just after Anne and her sisters were summoned by young Negi five years ago. I saw it when Bill-kun told me his suspicions about the Abyssals. Of course, thanks to those idiots in Geneva, anything like that from us..."

"To be ignored. You are still the 'enemy' in the eyes of even the more liberal people of Europe and America. I 'allowed' Voldemort to go crazy when he appeared two decades ago to launch his rebellion, thus my 'lack of sympathy' when it comes to the 'proper' way of things in Europe would make me suspect even if the ministries on the Continent are constantly outvoted by the rest of the world whenever someone tries to have me removed as Supreme Mugwump. Svetá's hatred of the ICW is all too well-known; her return to duty to help the former Soviet republics defend themselves from the Abyssals scares everyone in Geneva since they're convinced she'll remuster the veterans of the Moskvá Front and finish what she started in 1945. Being Canadian, Bill is a 'muggle-loving fool' from a 'magical backwater' who doesn't understand 'proper' magic. Even after all the things the crews of those ships have done during the world wars, they still think that in Europe!" Dumbledore finished for his contemporary; Yomigawa was six years his senior even if she looked to be in her late twenties by normal standards. "I owe you many apologies for that, Tsukiko, as much as I do to Bill and Svetá. Still, it's so ironic. This was Gellert's prophecy after I defeated him at Nurmengard. He knew the Statute would soon become an albatross around our collective necks...and now it's become that in so many ways. At least, thank Merlin, we have Svetá and her friends from the Moskvá Front, not to mention Bill and Mollie Bean working to shore up the defences in North America. If I didn't have to deal with Voldemort..."

"You sensed what's in young Harry's curse scar, didn't you?"

"Horcrux."

Yomigawa shook her head. "Stupid boy..."

"Could you have removed it?" Dumbledore asked.

"Too much mesonium was involved," his host advised. "Riddle-san was probably using a focusing crystal to make his soul-split work right from the instant he made the first of those horrid things." She tried not to scowl as she considered the idea of ripping her very SOUL apart to stay alive in the face of death, an act that would have totally destroyed her karma in the long term. "I asked friends from Gringotts about this. Even their horcrux cleansing rituals run a fifty percent risk of killing the lad if something goes wrong. Eighty percent chance of rendering him a nimmib." As he winced, she sighed. "We needed help."

"Who?"

"Moroboshi Negako."

He gaped. "Lady Negako?!"

"Her knowledge stems from Ō-sensei himself, Albus, added to a thousand years of battle experience that was piled on and on until she acquired sentience in that disaster in 1808," she advised. "I suspected young Ataru was Negako-chan's host when I realized the full nature of what was going on with young Harry. But by that time, the Oni girl was involved and Tennō didn't wish to upset that particular apple cart. That was the true crime of Redet Lum, Albus." She shook her head. "She wasn't doing it intentionally, but the damage she caused by her presence in Tomobiki hurt so many, Ataru worst of all." A chuckle escaped her. "Thanks to these ch'uokyek that Negako-chan told me about when she came by to inform me of what happened to Ataru — or, at the time, what WOULD happen to Ataru...!" Here, she winked as Dumbledore laughed. "...it gave me hope."

His eyes widened. "Negako is at Hogwarts?"

"Oh, I have no doubt of that. She doesn't keep me appraised of her itinerary. Once Hiroshi-kun's old command was welcomed into the Self-Defence Forces earlier today, Negako-chan was free to look in on young Harry. 'He has promise', she told me. Much that there are times she's as unpredictable as a typhoon, I think I know Negako-chan enough that if she takes interest in something, she'll ensure whatever attracts her attention will remain in good health until it serves her purposes."

That made him breathe out. "Thank Merlin...!"

* * *

 _ **Naval Station Kitsap Bremerton Annex, an hour later (local time: Saturday 20 May, breakfast)...**_

"Never rains but it pours...!"

Shaking his head, Samuel Williams could only curse as he watched the developing situation just northwest of Cape Flattery on the Canadian side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. That was being displayed on the largest screen in the main control bunker that had been installed at Bremerton close to the old Puget Sound Inactive Maintenance Facility. Blessing the hard work of the Seabees that replicated the functions of the command bunker at Naval Station Everett across Puget Sound northwest from Kitsap — the original command base for COMPACFLT was wrecked a year ago by an Abyssal force, such having been driven back by New Jersey and her sisters before Seattle itself had come under fire — the current senior commander of American naval forces over nearly half the planet's surface could only shake his head. "Any updates from _Discovery_ , Ms. Gale?"

Sarah Gale looked over. "Ready duty force was coming out from Vancouver, sir," she declared. "The Venture Brothers and the Lions. They brought out the varsity for this little disagreement in the strait," she added with a chuckle.

"Pity," a lieutenant mused from nearby. "The Tridents are half-way across the Pacific with that convoy. If they were here...!"

Williams nodded as he sent a silent thanks to his Canadian counterpart now based at Her Majesty's Canadian Ship _Discovery_ on Deadman's Island overlooking the Vancouver waterfront. Rear Admiral Scott Bowman smartly moved his headquarters staff from Esquimalt on Vancouver Island shortly after the whole of the Canadian Pacific Fleet had been lost at the Second Battle of Iō-tō, the last major fleet action fought by conventional warships against the Abyssals before the arrival of the shipgirls; the fact that the headquarters of Maritime Forces Pacific/Joint Task Force (Pacific) had been on an ISLAND with no land links to mainland British Columbia made moving to Canada's third-largest city as much a no-brainer as Williams' move to Washington from Hawai'i. Taking over the buildings once used by the naval reservists in British Columbia's largest city to help prepare new personnel, Bowman moved to rebuild as fast as fresh recruits could be shuttled through training...but then found himself dealing with all the wonders of "sparkly magical shipgirl bullshit" when his former counterpart in Halifax brought back the last surviving Flower-class corvette as a shipgirl five years ago, about two weeks after Kongō and her sisters appeared.

Much to the surprise of many — especially the Abyssals — the approach the Canadians took to the summoning process...!

"...the destroyers! They're biting up Cassie's stern like horny dogs, Francis! I've got a Harpoon lock on the lead fox!"

"Punch it downrange, Rusty! Heads up, Cassie!"

"Get it off me, you guys! I think it fucking LIKES me!"

" _ **ON THE WAY!**_ "

All the Americans whooped on hearing the familiar thunderous roar of an RGM-84 Harpoon leaping out of a Mark 141 canister launcher. From the blue target icon on the screen marked **NCSM RESTIGOUCHE D00 (FN)** , a red arrow lanced west-northwest in the direction of another blue target icon marked **USS CASSIN YOUNG DD-793 (SG)** , currently zigzagging to avoid the swarm of enemy destroyers, who seemed in reaching distance of the adopted sister of Williams' chief repair shipgirl.

"Go, baby! Sink that motherfucker!" one senior chief intelligence specialist screamed out.

Screams of encouragement boomed through the bunker as people — including a pale-faced Arthur Crowning, who always remained in Washington even when his fiancée was busy fighting the damned war halfway across the planet — watched the shipgirl-sized Harpoon race towards the enemy can closest to Young. As the destroyer shipgirl zigged north to close the coastline of Vancouver Island, the enemy destroyer sailed its bow right into a quarter ton of magically-shrunken high explosive. The result saw said destroyer obliviated and its two closest sisterships knocked off course to nearly collide with others.

" _ **YEAH!**_ " Gale whooped.

"Whoa! Thanks, Darlene!" Cassin Young called out over the comm lines.

"Haul ass, Caitlyn!" the accented voice of Restigouche called back from closer to the entrance of Royal Roads and Esquimalt Harbour. Given her namesake river formed part of the border between Québec and New Brunswick, the reborn and upgraded C-class destroyer was seen as French by her superiors and always addressed with the ship prefix "NCSM" in lieu of "HMCS" even if she had been built originally in Britain as HMS _Comet_ before being sold to the Dominion a year prior to the start of World War Two. "I'm not going to explain to your sis how you got your stern shot off like Kistiñe did two years ago!"

"Y-yeah...!"

 _ **«NO MORE!»**_

" _ **FUCK! INCOMING MISSILES!**_ " Sioux screamed out. " _ **V-1s INBOUND!**_ "

That made the command staff at Kitsap gasp in horror. Ever since missile-armed Canadian shipgirls had hit the waters, the fear had always been there that the Abyssals would find ways of forging their own rocket-propelled armament and mount it on their hulls to even the score and try to wrest back control of those parts of the oceans the Dominion's seaborne warriors had claimed as their own. Williams privately knew one of the missions of the Dragon Killers was to find the wreck sites of all nuclear carriers and submarines and destroy them with mesonium depth charges to render their reactors and weapons useless to the enemy. Sure enough, target icons relayed by satellite via _Discovery_ from the force of destroyers, frigates and corvettes moving to rescue the division of Fletcher-class shipgirls revealed a storm of fast-moving objects — not as fast as Harpoon anti-ship missiles, though they were fast enough for a situation like this — and all of them were closing in on Cassin Young...!

" _ **SHIT!**_ " Gale gasped as she focused on the icons marked **USS WASHINGTON BB-56 (SG)** and **USS SOUTH DAKOTA BB-57 (SG)**...both of which were still two hours away; they were making the turn into the Strait from Admiralty Inlet...!

Everyone then perked on hearing the deep thunder of naval cannons firing!

"New girl...?" one operations technician wondered.

"Eight shots!" a master chief gunner's mate said. "That's battlewagon ordnance! Too strong to be from a Mark 6 or Mark 7!"

"The Yamato girls have nine guns! They're all in Japan!" another operations technician declared. "Who the hell...?!"

"LOOK!" the command master chief of the base called out, pointing to the main board.

Heads snapped over to see a new icon next to Cassin Young's, just as the majority of missile icons closing on her vanished:

 **NCSM CAROLINA 02 (FN) (MMRC)**

Seeing that, Williams sank back into his chair. "Thank God...!"

"Merlin, too," Gale quipped.

Eyes locked on her, then gazed back on the screen. "'MMRC'?" Crowning asked.

"'Le Service Magique de la Marine Royale Canadienne', Professor," Williams answered as people stared in shock and disbelief at the commander of America's navy in the Pacific. "Royal Canadian Navy Magical Service. She's the second of the Erinsville-class battleships. Warspite and her sisters watched Erinsville herself in action at Jutland. Carolina's crew were the ones who saved Musashi's at Leyte while Chennalton's crew were busy saving the crews of the Taffies off Samar."

The English literature professor nodded. " _ **Leviathan Homicidae**_..."

"Professor?" the base's command master chief asked.

"'Leviathan Killer'," New Jersey's fiancé coldly declared...

* * *

 _ **The Strait of Juan de Fuca, that moment...**_

Cassin Young was trying not to just stand there, gaping like an idiot.

Like many of the World War Two generation of shipgirls, the California-born Fletcher-class destroyer — she saw herself as an adopted Wisconsinite thanks to her namesake — had heard all the stories about the Dragon Slayers. Mysterious battleships far larger than what either the Americans or anyone else had deployed in that conflict, appearing and disappearing like ghosts without any official notice by the crews — who were all made to forget ever seeing such ships — while their own crews rescued those of sunken warships and also fought off monsters that made even Godzilla look quite tame in comparison.

But now looming on the waters just aft of her wake...!

Before she could articulate a question, Young jolted as the quite welcome buzzing noise of a M61 Vulcan cannon mated to a Phalanx CIWS went off, disintegrating the last of the buzz bombs having been sent after her by the modified Re-class aviation battleship now closing with her larger escorts on the five girls of Destroyer Division 109 at twenty nautical miles' distance. Gazing at the western horizon to see the fleet of about twenty enemy ships coming her way, Young braced herself as her crews readied torpedoes in case the senior ship present ordered an attack. By then, her sisters had come into range. "Caitlyn! You okay?!" Porterfield called out as she stopped beside the other destroyer, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder.

Young jolted, then she nodded. "Y-yeah, Brianne! If it wasn't for her...!"

"Where the hell are Dakota and Wash?!" Callaghan demanded as she, Preston and Irwin got within normal speaking distance. Like the flag of their division, the three other destroyers were trying not to gape in shock at the battleship there.

Like a lot of shipgirls who had a long time on the high seas as an actual warship, Carolina — the displays on the destroyers' locator units were showing her name, ship prefix, pendant and home service on the screen — looked almost as old as Cassin Young's spiritual "sister" Vestal, with wavy hair styled in a simple ponytail that was shot deep with silver even if it clearly had been dark brown in younger days. Her face had a lean look with weathered cheeks and laugh lines around the mouth and eyes. Dark blue eyes that had a strange reddish glow peeked out of that face. Her human body was as sinewy and muscular as any American battleship and she seemed even taller than the Iowas...if such was possible. Like all Canadian shipgirls, the second of the Erinsville-class was in a diver's skinsuit, coloured gunmetal grey with her pendant **02** in white on her upper thighs. The stylized red maple leaf of the Dominion was on her left breast, her name on the right in white on a blue name tape.

And her rigging...

Her rigging...

 _ **«DO NOT INTERFERE, CAROLINA...!»**_

Hearing that from the approaching enemy battleship, the near-namesake of the headmistress of the Institute of Sorcery and Magic at the time of the Great War could only smirk as her eyes narrowed dangerously. "You brought ebony mesonium to this fight," she said in very charming Québécoise-accented English. "That, I'm afraid, was crossing a line..."

Instantly, the starboard barrels of Carolina's main gun turrets elevated while her surface scan radar got a lock on target. Battle computers developed by the magical wing of BlackBerry instantly calculated the solution and adjusted the aim to ensure the half-salvo about to be fired would hit the central ship of the formation all at the same time in a perfect time-on-target barrage.

The destroyers shuddered on hearing those Mark As roar, sending four 1.7 tonne shells racing towards the oncoming aviation battleship at four times the speed of sound, twice as fast as the original designers projected for the super-heavy gun that had been once proposed for the Montana-class battleships. As the enemy cruisers all moved to shield their flagship after seeing the flashes from the Canadian's guns indicating death was coming their way, Carolina smirked as she calculated the time...

"Don't look at it, girls," she then coldly declared.

The American destroyers jolted, then they screamed out, averting their eyes.

It was just in time...

* * *

 _ **Kitsap...**_

" _ **HOLY SHIT!**_ "

Williams looked over at one of the sonar technicians monitoring the SOSUS lines that were close to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The poor woman had just yanked off her earphones...right at the moment a terrible roar echoed over the comm links from the destroyers. A flashing icon then appeared where the enemy capital ships had been spotted just south of Pachena Beach on Vancouver Island, the image there showing an all too familiar radiation icon...thought it was embossed with a white **M**.

Seeing that, Professor Crowning blinked before he looked over. "Canadian ships don't use WMDs, do they?"

"Only the girls of CANBATRON ONE do," the admiral coldly declared as people once more gazed upon him. "But their Mark XLVI rounds aren't uranium or plutonium, Professor. They're mesonium warheads. Canada has the largest deposits of that stuff because of Major Raeburn's Power Jewel being in British Columbia when she found it back in 1889." As people nodded, he sighed. "Ms. Gale, was Carolina on the Canadian side of the border when she fired her rifles to destroy the enemy?"

Sarah Gale blinked, then looked over before nodding. "Aye, sir, she was."

"Good. As we all got a very unwanted reminder of early this morning, there are idiots in the Department of Magic who are desperate to do anything to make us forget a lot of things because of shipgirl magic. The ships of CANBATRON ONE normally have to stay masked from normal folks because of many treaties, including the original Statute of Secrecy back from 1689. If she was in American waters, I'm sure Carolina or any of her sisters would signal myself or my peers to request permission to make use of those things against massed targets. I'll report this to NCA right away so that if Colonel Quahog is forced to talk to him about it by those idiots in the Magical Congress, there will be no objections. Let's get those girls home, Sarah."

Gale smiled. "Aye, sir!"

"Sir, what if Carolina comes to the base?" the command master chief asked. "In case she wants to see the girls get home."

"She's rated a full captain in the Royal Canadian Navy, Master Chief," Williams stated. "She has no flag responsibilities, but she was commissioned all the way back in 1916. And she's been in full commission even in reserve status ever since." As the others in the room gaped on hearing how old that battleship was, he smirked. "The Canadians were practising sparkly magical shipgirl bullshit before it even got called that, it seems." As relieved laughter echoed through the room, the admiral smirked. "Ms. Gale, signal Carolina. My compliments to her and please ask her if she can spare time to come see me today."

Gale nodded. "Aye-aye, sir!"

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, the shipgirl dormitories, an hour later (local time: Sunday 21 May, an hour after midnight)...**_

"She had to use her meson Katies, huh..."

"Yeah!" South Dakota replied from her current position near the entrance to Admiralty Inlet, awaiting the arrival of DESDIV 109 and their new friend from Canada. "Lit up the whole western horizon like you wouldn't believe, Kathy."

"All this was because that battleship was launching doodlebugs with black meson warheads, Dak?" Iowa asked as the other shipgirls in the living room set aside for the carriers exchanged worried looks. Save Yonaga, who was as calm as ever.

"Yeah," the namesake of the Mount Rushmore State affirmed. "It 'crossed a line'; those were Carol's words before she fired her Mark As, Gabby. It was on the Canucks' side of the line, so she didn't have to do a 'May I' dance with Admiral Williams first. The admiral's invited her to come to Kitsap so we can get a debrief on what CANBATRON ONE's been doing all..."

"Dakota-san, _**please**_...!"

"First Canadian Battleship Squadron," Enterprise translated for Yonaga, whose eyebrow was now twitching ominously.

"You get used to their language eventually, Yoiko-san," Kaga mused.

"If it doesn't drive me mad first," the seventh carrier of Operation Z moaned.

A knock echoed from nearby. "Oi! This where the party at?!"

Heads snapped over. "Hey, Taeko-chan! Where have you been?!" Zuikaku asked.

Taihō smiled as she walked in from the main doors, bags of snacks in hand. Following her was a smiling blue-eyed redhead who seemed as well-developed as Pennsylvania or Arizona, though she was in a simple sleeved red Mandarin tang and blue track pants. She also carried bags of drinks for the other shipgirls there. Seeing her, all the other shipgirls gaped. "Oh! Is THIS your admiral, Taeko-chan?!" Zuikaku then leered as she gave Hayashi Kanami an appraising look.

Kanami gazed at the silver-haired carrier before she smirked. "Oh, is Suzue-chan a lonely girl?" she then teased as she sensuously fluttered her eyes at the taller woman. As Zuikaku blushed on sensing the newcomer mentally undress her, Taihō could only smirk in amusement. Much that she did like the other shipgirl, the most successful carrier in Imperial Japanese history often was too in-your-face for other people's comfort. "I suppose I'll have to be your admiral, too..."

Zuikaku awked. "L-l-lewd...!"

Yonaga looked over, then her eyes scanned the woman who had become Taihō's special "boatswain's mate" and personal morale officer. She was quick to note the blue eyes, which was very uncommon for a native of the islands, never mind the odd hair colour. She then noted the slight Occidental cant to the other girl's face. "You are part-American," she quickly concluded, which made Kanami gaze at her, though she didn't seem the least bit nervous about being called out like that.

Kanami nodded. "Through my mother's side. My maternal great-grandfather is Indiana Jones-hakase." As the Americans in the room and listening to this from across the Pacific gasped on hearing that name, she smirked as she handed the drinks to Akagi. "He knocked my great-grandmother up when he got drunk before the war started. After the war ended, he found out about my grandfather, then came here to adopt him and make it legitimate; she died in the big bombing raid in May of 1945 that burned Tōkyō to the ground." As Yonaga stiffened on hearing that — many of her crew lost relatives in the Operation: Meetinghouse attacks — Kanami added, "Hiiobā-chan's stupid parents chased him off with the family sword...the same one Hiiojii-chan had forged for them as a gift to symbolize their positions as minor samurai." As Yonaga's eyes widened on hearing how much the American archaeologist had been willing to aide Kanami's relatives that way, she smirked. "Well, a curse got slammed on Hiiobā-chan's relatives who couldn't accept that Ojii-chan was one-half Scots-American. It ended up either killing them or drove them insane. That explains that idiot that was my mother..." A dark look flashed across her face for a moment.

"Wait! You look a lot like Saotome Ranma when that weird curse gets him," Iowa noted as she pointed at the other woman. "I heard they found some way to cure the curse by letting it live as a separate person."

"Yeah, Gabby-san, that's me," Kanami affirmed. "And Ranma's dead, by the way. You can't do that to someone cursed by Jusenkyō." As Yonaga's eyes went wide on hearing THAT name, she smirked. "Your crew heard of that place?"

The seventh carrier caught herself, then she sighed, trying not to shudder. "Indeed so. Some of my pilots were assigned to deep reconnaissance missions in the skies over Seikai." That was the Japanese way of saying the characters of "Qīnghǎi". "They were specifically warned to be careful of a valley of springs close to a mountain village. The name 'Jusenkyō' was mentioned. We didn't know the exact nature of the place, but given you described this 'Ranma' as a man, Abigail-san..."

"'Terrible story of girl who drowned in Nyanniichuan fifteen hundred years ago'," Kanami quote the elderly guide who always watched over the Pools of Sorrow. "Fall into a spring, you get turned into whatever drowned there. We became a girl with a splash of cold water; hot water turned us back to normal. However, thanks to our fool father's idiocy, our life would have ended at the end of a tantō in seppuku because we failed in our promise to our mother to be a 'man above men'."

"An honourable fate," Yonaga noted.

"Even to do that for parents who wouldn't understand true honour even if they had studied the _Hagakure_ since they learned how to read, Yoiko-san?" Kanami wondered. "They made a pre-marriage oath to my paternal grandparents that we would be raised 'properly'. In other words, we wouldn't be taught to act like the grandmaster of our father's martial arts school — you've probably heard of him: Happōsai..." She smirked on seeing the look of disgust cross the carrier's face. "Much less deny our relationship to Hiiojii-chan. Our parents didn't do that, so I don't consider myself bound to that seppuku pledge. That's why I'm 'Hayashi Kanami' instead of 'Saotome Kanami'. And because Jusenkyō always demands its pound of flesh whenever someone tricks the curse to get rid of it, when I was separated from Ranma, his ticket got punched. He died two days ago."

"Oh, fuck!" New Jersey breathed out. "All the idiots in Nerima aren't going to accept that, Red! They've wanted to either marry or kill you for so long, they'll be charging down here to drag you back to that town ASAP."

"They'll be all shot dead, Katharine-san," Taihō stated. "The Tōkyō Family Court has rendered its judgement on the matter. Teitoku has no responsibilities to her so-called 'family'. Since she answered Tennō's call to serve here..."

That made Yonaga instantly stiffen before she nodded in grave understanding. "Very well, then. If these dishonourable rōnin decide to interfere in operations here, they'll all be put to the sword."

* * *

 _ **In Nerima, that moment...**_

People sneezed before they shivered as they sensed a chill warp past them.

As if someone was walking on their graves...

* * *

 _ **Sasebo...**_

"Shoot them dead, Yoiko-san," Kanami then coldly suggested. "They don't deserve beheading."

"Or even better, allow them to be mutilated without killing them," South Dakota then suggested from the entrance to Puget Sound. "Doesn't that hurt their karma way worse than just ending their lives, Yoiko?"

That made the carrier gape, though she was quite surprised. "Dakota-san, how did you come up with _**that**_?!"

"I'm an anime fan!" the battleship proudly answered.

"It's how she learned Japanese," Enterprise added.

"It may not be the _Chūshingura_ , but it is revenge in the end, Miss Yoiko."

That was a smiling Arizona, who was currently enjoying late night tea before she would turn in for the evening. "That was one of the many things Brent-san said when it came to how this country recovered from the war and strove to eventually become one of the dominant economic powers on Earth," Yonaga then mused. "Much that many of my crew found it hard to believe, from what I've seen so far, I can understand where he was coming from in that regard. A choice revenge indeed."

"Not to mention how popular the martial arts are in America, too," Kanami noted before Taihō tugged her shirt. "'Scuse us..."

With that, both headed down a hallway to the carrier's private room, giggling madly. The others watched them go, then San Francisco chuckled. "She is so much in love with that girl!" the nisei-shaped treaty cruiser hissed as she winked.

The others snickered. "While they were together in Yokosuka, Kanami-san did encourage Taeko-san to better herself. She never gained much experience in the war," Kaga said as Akagi moved to distribute the snacks to everyone else. Nodding her thanks to her oldest friend, the dark-haired carrier sighed. "It's good. I hope the 'admirals' that are chosen for all of us will be of equally fine quality. Even if she is a roughly cut jade in her manners and her karma suffered horrendously given how she came into this life, Kanami-san has a heart as pure as any true samurai and a zest for life that burns as brightly as Amaterasu Herself in the morning." As the others nodded, she smiled at the Americans. "And she has her great-grandfather's remarkable luck as well. Then again, given he did earn the Medal of Honour for saving those artifacts from Monte Casino during the Second World War, he certainly deserved the blessings of such objects as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail."

Yonaga's eyes widened. "Jones-hakase's father was one of the experts on the Sangréal. He actually found it?"

"And drank from waters contained within it, Captain," Washington announced from the entrance of Puget Sound. "He's still alive even today; the Grail extended his lifespan considerably. He's professor emeritus of archaeology at Marshall University."

"He often shows up at rallies to cheer the troops," Dakota added. "Even if he was a mud-eater instead of a Marine."

The two treaty battleships laughed at that. "Interesting," Yonaga mused.

"Kathy! Your hubby's wanting to call in!" Dakota then announced.

Jersey blushed. "'Scuse me, guys!"

With that, she headed to her own guest room. The others watched her go, then Sōryū shook her head. "Your sister's becoming more Japanese by the day, Gabby-chan," she teased as she gazed at Iowa. "Being so _**discrete**_..."

Laughter filled the room. "Oh, Michiko-san," Yonaga then called out.

San Francisco perked. "What is it, Yoiko?"

"The human name Ataru-san devised for you: 'Michiko Norton'. Any relation to the wise emperor that once graced your city?"

The cruiser smirked before she drew out her iPhone, getting immediately into her personal files. Bringing something up, she walked over to show it to the carrier. "His Proclamation," she declared with proper formality.

Yonaga looked...

 _To Our Honoured Friend, Lord Moroboshi Ataru of the Clan Moroboshi of the Imperial Province of Mutsu, 57th Host of the Angel of Terra, the Lady Moroboshi Negako, Grandmaster of the Imperial Martial Arts School of Saikō Jinseijutsu,  
_ _ **GREETINGS  
**_ _In note of your actions on the 11th of March this year within the pages of_ The Japan News _in support of the current war effort, We call upon you to heed Our Proclamation so that Our Will may be done.  
_ _With eternal thanks and with greatest respect to your noble sister,  
_ _We remain,  
_ _ **NORTON**_

 _ **A PROCLAMATION  
**_ _ **WHEREAS**_ _in this dark time for humanity, the noble and living spirits of the great warships of the many nations of the world have been summoned back to fight against dark and devilish creatures seeking humanity's total destruction,  
_ _ **WHEREAS**_ _it is noted that the greatest of efforts is now being made within Our United States to call forth the warships of Our Navy to fight the foe,  
_ _ **WHEREAS**_ _a cruiser that was constructed at Our Naval Shipyard at Mare Island, launched on the Ninth day of March in the Year of Our Lord Nineteen-Thirty-three and commissioned in Our Navy on the Tenth day of February the following year, was named in honour and tribute to Our Beloved Capital City,  
_ _ **WHEREAS**_ _We viewed with great anguish and outrage the actions of the illegal government in the city of Washington when it came to Our Citizens born or descent of the Islands of Japan in the wake of the attack on Our Naval Base at Pearl Harbour on the Seventh day of December in the Year of Our Lord Nineteen-Forty-one, unleashing terrible deprivations upon them due only to their ancestry,  
_ _ **AND WHEREAS**_ _the Lord Moroboshi Ataru of the Imperial Japanese Province of Mutsu, fifty-seventh host of the Angel of Terra, the Lady Moroboshi Negako, has called upon all the military leaders worldwide to better treat the reborn warriors of the seven seas as the human beings they have become by Divine Providence,  
_ _ **THEREFORE**_ _We, Norton I, Emperor of These United States and Protector of Mexico, do proclaim that upon her recall to duty whenever Divine Providence does permit such, that Our Warship San Francisco be adopted into Our Family and Clan, christened under the name_ _ **Michiko Francine Norton**_ _, to be treated and honoured for her noble deeds in Our Service against the foes of Our Nation both past and present.  
_ _ **Given under Our Hand and Seal in Our City of San Francisco,  
**_ _ **NORTON**_

Seeing that, the carrier nodded in approval. "My admiral remembered hearing the stories of His Majesty when he was studying in Los Angeles," she noted. "Even from beyond the grave, His Majesty contacted Negako-sama to have this happen?"

"His ghost haunts the magical quarter of the Presidio. He was able to get a seer to send a message to Ataru to include that name," San Francisco said. "I visit him every time I'm in town to keep him appraised of the war effort."

Yonaga nodded. "You have a _**president**_...!" Zuikaku moaned.

The seventh carrier smirked as she gazed in amusement upon her old mission mate from Operation Z. "Suzue-san, this was once said of His Majesty: 'Since he has worn the Imperial Purple, he has shed no blood, robbed nobody and despoiled the country of no one. Which is more than can be said for his fellows in that line'," she calmly explained.

As the silver-haired carrier shook her head, everyone else laughed...

* * *

 _ **Scotland, near the Forbidden Forest north of Hogwarts, that moment (local time: An hour before supper)...**_

"Bloody hell! What's going on here?!"

Hearing that gruff voice from the large man approaching her from behind, Moroboshi Negako gazed briefly over her shoulder at the half-giant groundskeeper that had reacted on seeing the incredible flares of magic now filling the northern sky from the window of his cabin. "Calm yourself, Rubeus," the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū stated as she returned to monitoring the absorption of the residual magic which had been burned into the soil at this site, where a brigade of Gellert Grindelwald's troops fought volunteer war-wizards from Britain during the latter years of World War Two. "This will harm no one."

Rubeus Hagrid stopped as he peered intently at this strange woman in black for a moment, then his eyes lit up with delight. "Ah! It's you, Negako! Harry told me you'd be coming over here to look in on him!" Lowering his crossbow, he then walked up to stand beside her, gazing curiously at the several fist-sized crystals of mesonium that were now sucking in glowing trails of magic from the once blood-soaked grounds. "What are you doing?" he then asked as he gazed in confusion at her.

"Using the residual magic of those who fell here to assist in summoning more shipgirls for service in the Royal Navy and the German Navy," Negako stated. "Most of those who fell in the battle here in 1943 were 'muggleborn' (to use your term for those born of non-magical parents). Their loyalty to their home countries overwhelmed whatever loyalty they had to their adopted magical communities. Even if their spirits have passed into the Dào, their magic remains infused on these grounds. It can be used to help aid in the summoning of shipgirls. Both Her Majesty and President Steinmeier of Germany desired my assistance in determining if those warships that were not completed during the Second World War could be summoned."

Hagrid blinked. Unlike many leaders of Britain's wand-magicals, he didn't have any negative feelings about shipgirls. Much to many people's amazement, he often tended to be a little sympathetic when it came to Abyssals, seeing them as yet another type of "misunderstood beast" that needed compassion in lieu of lethal killing spells and muggle weapons to drive them off. Having been the man who rescued the just-orphaned Harry Potter from the wreckage of his home over a decade ago, he was grateful to Nagato for rescuing the poor lad from those devil Dursleys, who had tried to starve the poor lad out in hopes of stamping out the magic from him. Having met many shipgirls when he went to Japan to bring Harry to England for school shopping, the groundskeeper found them to be quite charming and delightful, certainly nowhere close to the dark and evil monsters that most mugalophobes such as Dolores Umbridge and almost all of Voldemort's followers thought of them.

"Ships that never got the chance to fight?" he asked.

"Yes. With the assistance of new allies I made on humanity's behalf over the last year, we have obtained the nascent souls of all the Lion-class battleships from Britain and the H-class battleships from Germany. They are currently in a 'holding' state in the void between the mortal world and the realm where the spirits of such beings reside after their destruction. They require spiritual assistance to assume mortal form, hence the requirement of residual magical energy, preferably from those who saw themselves firmly loyal to the country at the time of their deaths. Since such would cleanse this part of the school grounds and make it available for studies, those who attend classes here would also benefit from this exercise. Agreed?"

He nodded, a delighted smile crossing his face. Ever since that battle all those years ago, the students and staff at Hogwarts tended to avoid this place as if every ounce of soil and grass here was infected with a very virulent case of spattergroit. The creatures of the Forbidden Forest currently off to his right also avoided this part of the school grounds. Not even the Death Eaters had ever approached the castle from this direction in the three times they had attacked Hogwarts during Voldemort's rebellion. If Negako was willing to clean this place up and if such helped in the overall war effort against the Abyssals, so much the better. Like many magicals who were far more sympathetic to the non-magicals, Hagrid had long come to realize that the Statute of Secrecy would eventually be coming down in the next few years. Despite all the screamed warnings from the mugalophobes about what the normals would do once they learned of magicals, the groundskeeper knew from normal-born students such as Hermione Granger that most normals in the United Kingdom knew about the hidden magical enclaves in the country. As Hermione herself had shown through that strange device called a "laptop computer" a couple times, "chat lines" — a modern muggle version of live-time conversations through the Floo — were filled with worried comments from normal Britons concerning how would magical Britons be finally integrated into modern society without any major difficulties...

He perked as Negako pulled one of those things called "mobile phones" from her hakama pocket, tapping the glass-like screen to open some sort of invisible link to whoever she wanted to contact. "Ataru, the energy should now be flowing into the summoning unit," she bade. "Commence the procedure. We will begin with the German shipgirls."

"Hai, Onē-san!" chimed over the phone from Japan...

* * *

 _ **Sasebo, that moment...**_

"Okay, let's hope the girls are listening..."

Watching the man who had defended Earth a year ago against aliens — and who actually RETURNED the Presidential Medal of Freedom not three weeks before because he had realized that he hadn't "completed the mission" when he faced his would-be "wife" at the Tomobiki Sportsplaza in the Tag Race — a wide-awake Jane Richardson instantly crossed her fingers and toes as she waited for Moroboshi Ataru to start the summoning process and bring forth Germany's penultimate battleships.

A warm hand squeezed her shoulder, making her look up at Jintsū, who escorted the young girl down to the Moroboshi siblings' current residence to see what Ataru and Miss Negako had in mind. Said residence was once the school gymnasium for Kōkai Junior High School north of the local naval base grounds; it had been closed down in the early part of the Abyssal War six years ago after it was decided to evacuate defenceless children from seashore cities. The gymnasium had been converted over the last year into a deep swimming pool filled with ocean water that had been seeded with mesonium crystals to better draw in the kami of warships and break them free of any potential influence by the Abyssals; Ataru had been quite horrified to learn of the sublime spiritual connection between the defenders of humanity and the monsters they had been summoned to fight.

Ataru flipped a control on his computer, which allowed a chorus of violins and horns to echo over the former gymnasium...

* * *

 **Somewhere...**

 _They had once been designed to serve as critical elements of the great Z-Plan..._

 _The vast project that would have helped restored German naval might after the cruel shame of Versailles and allow the heirs of the Holy Roman Empire to regain the necessary strength to fight off the influences of rival powers, even Britain..._

 _But even if two of their number had been laid down in the wake of the Bismarck-class ships, none had been completed..._

 _Meticulous planning done by Erich Raeder's staff, factoring in limitations of German shipyards and the need to train crews..._

 _...that had been effectively tossed aside when a former painter from Austria who had somehow ascended to the top position in the Reich had elected to force his demands for more land on other countries far too soon..._

 _...and thus plunged the Fatherland into a war it ultimately couldn't win._

 _As the nascent spirits of the six H-class battleships remained in a sort of limbo after their construction was cancelled in the spring of 1941, they enjoyed the quiet peace of this strange place between the mortal and divine..._

 _...until naval enthusiasts from_ **Russia** _of all places began to imagine what they could have been like had they been built to a modified design that allowed TWELVE 420 millimetre guns in four three-gun turrets to be deployed on a hull that was similar to the "H-41" design that had been put out by the naval architects in response to issues with aerial attacks on older ships, making them the equivalent of Japan's famous Yamato-class or the never-completed American Montana-class battleships._

 _They had even given a name for the lead ship:_

 **Großer Kurfürst**. _The Great Elector._

 _And yet..._

 _Yet..._

 _Wait!_

 _Six pairs of eyes blinked as the beautiful horns, trumpets and violins of Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto no. 1 in F Major echoed through this place, filling hearts that were human where it mattered the most with warmth and longing..._

 _Wait..._

 **«Listen to the music. Home in on it. Humanity has need of you all.»**

 _Who was THAT...?_

 _Yet..._

 _No..._

 _Oh, God, NO...!_

 _The screams of thousands of brave German sailors dying, facing monsters empowered by a strange form of dark magic that sought to deny mankind the right to use over two-thirds of the planet's surface for reasons that were still unknown..._

 _And not just German..._

 _British..._

 _French..._

 _Russian..._

 _American..._

 _Italian..._

 _Japanese..._

 _Men, women and children..._

 _Levels of death that made the bombing of the Fatherland by the Allies during the Second World War TRIVIAL in comparison..._

 _No...!_

 _No!_

 _NO!_

 _IT WILL NOT STAND!_

 _ **«DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM...!»**_

 _Darkness seemed to flow over them, making them shiver as they felt something try to make the beautiful music fade away..._

 _ **«YOU WERE NEVER WANTED BY THE HUMANS! DO NOT GO TO THEM! DO NOT...!»**_

 **«Be silent.»**

 _The coldness of that voice — the voice of the being who had brought the beautiful music that seemed to show the true heart of Germany...even at a time when Germany was not one united country — made the sextet of battleships perk._

 _Did the dark ones like something as simple as_ **music** _...?_

 _ **«MUSIC IS NOTHING! DO NOT LISTEN TO THE EARTH ANGEL'S EMPTY WORDS! SHE HAS BEEN DECEIVED BY THE HUMANS! COME TO US! SEEK VENGEANCE FOR BEING ABANDONED LIKE THAT...!»**_

« **Be silent.** »

Sensing the iron control that mysterious woman possessed as a birthright, the sextet gazed on each other as beautiful human bodies formed around their souls, such then filled with glowing crystal-like minerals that seemed supercharged with energy.

 _ **«NO! DO NOT DO THIS, EARTH ANGEL! DO NOT DO THIS...!»**_

« **Your wishes are not relevant. Be silent. Do not listen to them, girls. They are blind to their own foolish and mindless animistic rage. You are better than that. You are superior to them. All of Germany wishes you to come and live the lives you were denied by Adolf Hitler's megalomania that slaughtered millions. You are human as much as you are the souls of the H-class battleships of the German Navy. The children of Germany have even given you your names...** »

 _Our..._ _ **NAMES?!**_

« **...Hessen...** »

 _A beautiful woman with pale silver hair and crimson brown eyes perked on sensing that name was applied to her, the first of two who had actually been laid down in 1939 at the same shipyard that had seen Bismarck and Admiral Hipper born..._

« **...Brandenburg...** »

 _That was a grinning, impish near-twin of the woman who was the soul of what had simply been Schlachtschiff "H", though there was a beautiful Prussian cant to the features of she who had once been simply Schlachtschiff "J"..._

« **...Sachsen...** »

 _The silver-haired, green-eyed Schlachtschiff "K" beamed at such a choice, which represented the great people that had once kept the Romans away from the future lands of the Reich millennia ago and even helped civilize England..._

« **...Westphalia...** »

 _A twin to Hessen and Brandenburg, the former Schlachtschiff "L" burst with energy like the rampant horse that served as the central motif within the badge of her namesake duchy/kingdom/province where the post-war capital of Germany had been..._

« **...Mecklenburg...** »

 _The former Schlachtschiff "M" was the only blonde of the Hessen-class battleships, possessing nearly black eyes and a brutish demeanour, looking as if she was willing to physically ram herself into any enemy that dared sail before her bow..._

« **...Thüringen...** »

 _Another one with the same physical features as Hessen, Brandenburg and Westphalia, the former Schlachtschiff "N" would seem like a lioness to any person that would meet her, stately and wise yet quite willing to fight..._

« **Now, ladies. Follow the music and embrace your new lives...** »

« _ **HOW DARE YOU STEAL MAGIC, YOU FILTHY MUGGLE!**_ **AVADA KEDAVRA** _ **!**_ »

 _Gasps escaped the six battleships on hearing that outraged shout, then they surged towards wherever that woman was..._

* * *

 _ **Sasebo...**_

"Um...what happened?"

Ataru sighed. There had been a massive flash of light and energy as the music continued to play, yet no shipgirls had appeared in the pool. "Someone in Scotland's a dead man right now, Jane-chan," he breathed out.

As Jane blinked on hearing that neutral statement, Jintsū sighed.

At least whatever had happened hadn't come HERE...!

* * *

 _ **Near Hogwarts...**_

"That was foolish, Thomas."

Hagrid was gaping. "Professor Quirrell! What the HELL...?!"

" _ **AVADA KEDAVRA!**_ "

Another bolt of green death energy lashed out of Quirinus Quirrell's wand to lance towards the woman in black while six glowing columns of magic and energy melted into six perfect twenty-something women dressed in uniforms similar to what their nation's first aircraft carrier donned when she was at sea. As they gasped in shock on seeing that bolt of energy be deflected by the sweep of a beautiful energy sword now in that woman's hand, surprised shouts and muffled running feet from the direction of the nearby castle made Hagrid spin around to see four very angry heads-of-houses race towards them, wands out and at the ready. " _ **QUIRINUS!**_ " Minerva McGonagall shrieked out in a perfect rendition of her long-practised "stern matron" voice. " _ **WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME ARE YOU DOING, YOU FOOLISH MAN?! YOU CAN'T ATTACK...!**_ "

Quirrell whipped his wand at her, turning his back on Negako. " _ **AVADA KEDA-...!**_ "

" _ **LEICHEBLUT SCHWEINHUND!**_ "

A howling scream escaped the defence professor as he spun around, bellowing the Killing Curse at the impudent silver-haired muggle woman with the reddish-brown eyes who spat out that vicious German counter-insult to "mudblood" that had been devised by Gellert Grindelwald's elite warrior witch brigade to help them drum up support against the pureblood lords of Europe and allow the Greater Good to be gifted to all humanity. However, using such a spell on a being — even if she had not been completed and commissioned into the previous incarnation of the German Navy in the 1940s — which personified the dreams and hopes of a nation of seventy million people was like firing a DROP OF WATER at someone; it had no effect...

...save for making Hessen even MORE angry.

"She gave us _**music**_ ," the lead ship of her class snarled as her rigging manifested, allowing turrets with three 42 centimetre/48 calibre SK C/40 naval cannons that had never been fired in the mortal world to lock on target. " _ **ALLE KANONEN! FEUER!**_ "

As McGonagall and her fellow heads-of-house apparated out of range, Quirrell helplessly screamed before twelve shipgirl-sized one tonne shells slammed into him at twice the speed of sound, rendering his body into a fine red mist! From that, a howling, twisted ghostly face emerged, rising into the sky. " _ **CURSE YOU, MUGGLE!**_ " it screamed out in a voice that made Hagrid and his co-workers gape in horror on recognizing it. " _ **LORD VOLDEMORT WILL NOT FORGET THIS INSULT...!**_ "

" _ **SEISHIN-HASAI HI-KŌSEN!**_ "

A bolt of green energy lanced out from Negako's hand to punch through Voldemort's disembodied forehead, shredding the dark lord's very soul with a power that no being who had ever dealt in the black magics could _**begin**_ to imagine...

As the last remnants of the man born Thomas Marvolo Riddle shrieked in agony on feeling his anchors to this life brutally severed from him, Severus Snape howled as he felt something like a thousand burning knives lance through his left arm...

* * *

 _ **Inside the castle within Gryffindor Tower, that very moment...**_

A scream of gut-wrenching pain then escaped Harry Potter as a burst of dark magic exploded from the scar on his forehead!

" _ **HARRY!**_ " Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger cried as people lunged to their house mate's side...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Zanshin** — Literally "remaining mind", this is the term used to indicate a state of relaxed awareness of one's surroundings; **Haiden** — The oratory of a Shintō shrine, where practitioners gather to worship the kami of the shrine; **Tenmon-jinja** — Shrine of Heaven's Gate; **Senkō** — Clear Light; **NCSM** — Short for **Navire Canadienne de Sa Majesté** , French for **Her Majesty's Canadian Ship** ( **HMCS** ); **FN** — Short for **Filles Navires** ("Navy Girls"), the French term for shipgirls ( **SG** ); **NCA** — National Command Authority, the military's short-hand term for the President of the United States; **Leicheblut schweinhund** — Literally "corpse-blood pig-dog", this is the German equivalent of the Canadian term "staleblood"; **Alle Kanonen! Feuer!** — All Cannons! Fire!; **Seishin-hasai Hi-kōsen** — Spirit-Breaker Fire-Light.

In my stories, the fear normals have of magicals is normally addressed as **Rhabdophobia** (noun: **rhabdophobe** ); this is based on the Greek term for a staff or wand. Its direct opposite is **Mugalophobia** (noun: **mugalophobe** ); this term was deprived from the translation of "muggle" in the Green editions of the _Harry Potter_ novels.

In the universe of this story, a conscious decision was made by leaders of Commonwealth navies to separate the pendant numbers used by warships of the World War Two generation from the master British Imperial list. Despite this decision, the actual pendant numbers were maintained unless there were duplicate numbers. Pendants for shipgirls in the Royal Australian Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal New Zealand Navy and other sister services go this way:

 **Number without flag letter** — Battleship  
 **A (number)** — Auxiliary support ship  
 **C (number)** — Cruiser  
 **D (number)** — Destroyer  
 **F (number)** — Frigate  
 **K (number)** — Corvette  
 **M (number)** — Mine warfare craft  
 **P (number)** — Patrol craft  
 **R (number)** — Aircraft carrier  
 **S (number)** — Submarine  
 **Z (number)** — Airship

Thus **NCSM** _ **Restigouche**_ ( **Darlene Piers** ), which had the original pendant number **H00** as a ship, was renumbered **D00**.

List of shipgirls for this chapter (including those in the formations mentioned above):

 _ **CANADA  
**_ _Fourth Canadian Destroyer Squadron "Venture Brothers" (CANDESRON FOUR)  
_ **HMCS Sioux** — Taylor Elizabeth Groos  
 **NCSM Huron** — Noelle Linda Spicer  
 **HMCS Fraser** — Veronica Brenda Reid  
 **HMCS Saint Francis** — Leslie Ruth Clattenburg  
 **NCSM Restigouche** — Darlene Wilma Piers  
 **HMCS Qu'Appelle** — Phillippa Alanna Harrison

 _Fourth Canadian Escort Group "British Columbia Lions" (CANESCGRU FOUR)  
_ **NCSM Sainte-Agathe** — Augustine Norberta Morin  
 **HMCS Prince Rupert** — Clara Orian Hays  
 **NCSM Saint-Eduoard** — Maria Collette Napier  
 **HMCS Beacon Hill** — Emily Theresa Simmons  
 **HMCS Agassiz** — Brenda Reika Johnson  
 **HMCS Chilliwack** — Leslie Ryōko Foxall  
 **HMCS Quesnel** — June Allana Gow  
 **HMCS Trail** — Glenda Stacey Hall  
 **HMCS Cloverdale** — Wendy Martha Shannon  
 **HMCS Comox** — Helen Wilma Stacey Soulsby  
 **HMCS Nanaimo** — Trudy Janet Bellas  
 **HMCS Clayoquot** — Rhonda Brie Campbell  
 **HMCS Courtenay** — Alice Ruth Ascah  
 **HMCS Esquimalt** — Francine Joanne Louise Davies

 _Second Canadian Escort Group "Pacific Tridents" (CANESCGRU TWO)  
_ **HMCS Tisdale** — Helen Tricia Kelsey  
 **HMCS Kirkland Lake** — Janet Allison Tullis  
 **HMCS Capilano** — Hannah Evelyn McArthur  
 **HMCS Kokanee** — Jordan Hollanda Marshall  
 **HMCS Alberni** — Irene Octavia Baugh  
 **HMCS Kamloops** — Jaime Millicent Gillison  
 **HMCS New Westminster** — Ronalda Olive McKenzie  
 **HMCS Vancouver** — Peyton Francine Maureen DeFreitas  
 **HMCS Ts'il-os** — Loretta Marilyn Baptiste  
 **HMCS Nanoose** — Heather Katharine Kingsley  
 **HMCS Lockeport** — Dorothy Anne Trail  
 **HMCS Cowichan** — Rhoda Rayne Jackson  
 **HMCS Quatsino** — Sophia Tricia Douglas  
 **HMCS Kelowna** — Wendy Elizabeth Davenport

 _ **GERMANY  
**_ **DMS Hessen** — Christine Margarethe von der Salle  
 **DMS Brandenburg** — Elisabeth Beatrix von Meißen  
 **DMS Sachsen** — Agnes Hilda von Anhalt  
 **DMS Westphalia** — Charlotte Jeanne von Kleve  
 **DMS Mecklenburg** — Anastasia Cecile von Schwerin  
 **DMS Thüringen** — Margaret Mathilde von Wettin

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Jintsū** — Hashimoto Junko

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Cassin Young** — Caitlin Young  
 **USS Porterfield** — Brianne Louisa Porterfield  
 **USS Callaghan** — Margaret Judy Callaghan  
 **USS Preston** — Sandra Irmak Preston  
 **USS Irwin** — Nora Catarina Irwin  
 **USS Vestal** — Velma Young


	5. Yonaga Deploys to Hogwarts

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, the Hospital Wing, Sunday 21 May, after supper...**_

"Ooh...someone get the serial number of that torpedo that hit me...?"

A tender yet inhumanly strong hand landed on a now scar-less head. "You weren't torpedoed," the caring voice of the reborn flagship of the Combined Fleet at the time of Pearl Harbour whispered as Harry Potter's eyes fluttered open.

Looking up to see a worried Nagato gazing down at him, Harry shuddered before the absence of the slight throb that always twitched over his right eye then caught his attention. "Hey...!" he moaned before looking around. "Mirror...?"

A mirror appeared. "Hoppō brought a mirror, Onii-chan!" a cute girl's voice said just as a certain white-faced child Abyssal princess peeked around the side of the device in question, a smile on her face. "Earth Angel got rid of the nasty scar!"

Harry looked, then he shuddered. "Poi...!"

"Poi! This is definitely poi!" a welcome destroyer's voice then chimed.

"Desu!" came from an equally-familiar battleship, making him turn and look to see a whole crowd from Yokosuka and Sasebo now standing around "his" private bed in the Hospital Wing. "Harry looks so much nicer now! That scar was so ugly!"

"Far worse than that, Commander Chihaya."

Heads turned. "What do you mean, Pomfrey-sensei?" Nagato asked.

Poppy Pomfrey sighed. "If what Lady Negako just told me about what was inside that scar was even HALF true, Commander Yamamoto, Mister Potter is lucky to be rid of it!" She shook her head. "That stupid boy! To do THAT to himself...!"

"I assume we're talking about this Voldemort asshole, right?" New Jersey growled.

The aged mediwitch stiffened slightly on hearing that battle name, then she relaxed herself. "The same fool, Commander Hyde. Thomas Riddle was his real name. He was a student here from the freshman class of 1938, sorted into Slytherin. He eventually made prefect and Head Boy when he did his NEWTs in 1945, just before Albus finally dealt with Gellert Grindelwald at Nurmengard." She came over with a tray of potions, setting it down on the nightstand beside Harry's bed before handing him one. "Here you are, Mister Potter. This will allow your magical core to recover from the side-effects of Negako using her spirit-breaker energy attack to shred that idiot's soul and forever remove that waste of magic from this life once and for all!" She shook her head as she tried to be calm. As a mediwitch, she was oath-bound to save lives. Having survived Voldemort's rebellion a decade ago, Pomfrey also knew that it was much better at times to eliminate a life to save many others.

Realizing that ALWAYS left a bad taste in her mouth...

"How did it affect my son, Sensei?" Nagato wondered.

"Thomas split his soul apart to create horcruxes, Reiko. This would protect him from being forced to embrace what lies within the Dào," a cold woman's voice answered from the area of the main doors, those tones instantly making people shudder. "One fragment was accidentally lodged in Harry's forehead when Thomas attempted to murder him a decade ago."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"That's not poi!" Harry hissed before he swallowed the potion, wincing as the taste burned his tongue. "From what I've been taught, you NEVER do anything to your soul. Especially not THAT! To ruin your karma like that...!"

"Good," Pomfrey said with a smile. "Don't forget that, Mister Potter."

"He will not, Sensei," a new voice declared, making Harry blink before he looked over, his eyes widening. "Once he returns to Yokosuka, I will help train him to achieve zanshin. He needs to be prepared to deal with this animal's followers..."

"NO!" Nagato snapped as she stormed over to glare up at the other shipgirl, whose features Harry instantly recognized from pictures taken of her by Naka that he saw on his laptop computer. "You'll back off and leave him be, Yoiko-san! He...!"

" _ **REIKO-SAN!**_ " Yonaga snapped to silence the battleship. "What do a lord's samurai do when their lord falls in battle against avowed enemies?! Even if the 'lord' is as much of an honourless rōnin as this Voldemort fool?!"

Nagato blinked as she took that in, then she shuddered. "No...!"

"Revenge attacks, you mean?"

Heads turned as a gaunt and pale potions master slowly stood from his bed. "Exactly, Severus," Moroboshi Negako stated as she sat beside Harry, fingers reaching over to probe the kyūsho on the younger man's forehead. As Pomfrey continued to feed him potions, the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū added, "I did not sense the full extent that Thomas had gone to ensure his core soul remained 'here' in this life until I struck him down. Even while disembodied, he was leeching magic from his followers. Including you, Severus." As Severus Snape paled in horror on hearing that, Negako's nearly black eyes focused on him. "You repented your allegiance to Thomas because of Harry's mother Lily. That saved your magic when the link between yourself and Thomas was severed; much that you disapprove of many aspects of your native society, you knew Thomas had gone too far in trying to 'reform' it. Many of your peers in the Knights of Walpurgis survived because they repented their allegiance or were never loyal to Thomas. They will also endure this time without loss of magic. As for the others..."

"Squibs?" Pomfrey wondered.

"Yes," Negako answered. "But not right away. That gives them time."

"To seek vengeance," Yonaga finished.

"Indeed."

Silence fell as Nagato's shoulders slumped, a shudder running through her...

* * *

 _ **The Great Hall...**_

"They're _**German**_ shipgirls?!"

"Bloody hell! Look at those bodies! They're even more ripped than Harry's mum!"

"That first one was the one who killed You-Know-Who...?!"

"I thought Harry killed him a decade ago!"

"Don't be stupid! Potter was a BABY when it happened! It was probably his mum!"

"Lady Nagato?"

"No! Potter's REAL mum...!"

As excited chatter filled the space while people enjoyed a late supper as ordered by Minerva McGonagall, almost a quarter of the house elves who worked at Hogwarts were fawning over the six tall and pale-haired battleships who were enjoying their first meals as shipgirls to top off their tanks and replenish the scant ammunition they had brought with them from the spirit world they had resided in for over seven decades after they had originally been designed by Erich Raeder's staff. A special table for the six Hessen-class girls had been set at the back of the hall, close to the ends of the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. As many students used their cameras and laptop computers to get pictures of them, the elderly chief elf of the castle gazed fondly on the woman who had helped rid the world of a certain dark lord. "You eats all you cans, Miss Hessen!" Lippy said as she wagged a bony finger at the silver-haired battleship. "You should have lets the Earth Angel deals with He Who Must Never Be Named! You just comes from Spirit Land! How can you fights the sea demons if you not eats properly?!"

Hessen held up her hands. "Please, Frau Lippy! I'm replenishing as best as I can! This IS my first time! Please...!"

As Lippy nodded, Hessen's sisters giggled while the troupe of destroyers who were standing guard to make sure that no idiot tried to do something with the sextet of super-battleships exchanged knowing looks. "Damn! You gotta admire the Germans! They sure as hell know how to design good ships!" Johnston stated with a shake of her head as she crossed her arms.

That made the battleships blush at that compliment from the scrappy destroyer who was often seen as Taffy Three's nominal leader. "At least they were able to come and help out finally," Fubuki stated. "Hopefully, Louisiana-san's and Montana-san's sisters will soon come, not to mention the Lions and the A-150 girls." She used the ship names so as to not confuse the just-summoned shipgirls about the subject of human names. "Then we'll have all the super-battleships that would have been in the war finally on duty. The CIS and the French were able to bring back the Sojúz-class and the Alsace-class last year! It's so unfair that Chennalton-sensei and her friends have to fight alone all the time!" She shook her head.

"You know about the Canadian magical warships?!"

That was Hannah Abbott, who was currently seated at the end of the Hufflepuff table. As people instantly quieted down to hear the Japanese destroyer's response, the brown-haired shipgirl shrugged. "No choice now, Hannah-chan. When I was sunk off Cape Esperance, one of the Ryū-..." She caught herself. "I mean, one of the ships of the First Battleship Squadron was nearby and rescued half the crew I 'lost', including my captain. I always wanted to thank her for what her crew did; one of those kaijū were nearby ready to consume the souls of those who would have drowned." As the magicals listening in to this winced on hearing that, the destroyer's brown eyes teared. "It was such an honour to meet Chennalton-sensei finally, but..."

"What did she look like?"

That was Ronald Weasley. "Ron...!" Terry Boot warned from the Ravenclaw table.

"An Imperial Rescript is magically binding, Terry," Hermione Granger stated from her seat beside Ron. "If His Majesty has revealed Lady Chennalton's existence to the general public even if magic wasn't mentioned in it, then the shipgirls have every right to find out about her sisters in the squadron. Especially if they're in the same situation as Lieutenant Fukushima there, having 'died' during the War of Liberation and having lost a lot of her crew along the way. She has a right to know."

Uncertain looks crossed many people's faces. "Much that we do sympathize with the lieutenant and her friends, it is hard to break long-ingrained habits when it comes to dealing with muggles, Miss Granger. Still, shipgirls are magical even if the muggles were the ones who brought them back," McGonagall noted. "You are right about that Rescript being magically binding. It's no different than the Queen's Magical Royal Proclamations or President Bartlet's Magical Executive Orders. Ten points to Gryffindor." As the sounds of tumblers from the hall beyond the entrance to the Great Hall echoed to indicate the increase of house points, she added, "Since the help of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron is clearly needed to save lives, letting these brave lasses learn the truth is only proper." As many in the Great Hall relaxed while most students nodded in understanding, the deputy headmistress smiled. "I had the privilege of sailing on one of those ships while I was studying for my transfiguration mastery at the Institute of Sorcery and Magic in Canada the summer after I graduated from Hogwarts in 1954, Lieutenant. Do you remember what that ship whose crew rescued your crew at Cape Esperance looked like?"

Fubuki shuddered. "The very large ones with three funnels, Sensei."

"Mainmast pointing forward or aft?"

"Aft, Sensei."

McGonagall smiled. "Her Majesty's Canadian Ship _Lady Jane_ , second of the Lady Elgin-class battleships. Her sister was at Second Dogger Bank; 'Jutland' as you would know it." As the shipgirls gasped on hearing that — Fubuki had always bragged to her friends about getting a chance to meet the kanmusu version of such an incredible warship — the transfiguration mistress smiled as she used her wand to create an image for the visitors to see. "Her as a shipgirl. Her human name is 'Jane Smith'. She was named after the Chief Witch of the Canadian Wizengamot at the time she was ordered in 1915. She missed out on Second Dogger Bank thanks to those Scourers from America, but was there to help Russia stabilize from their civil war; she got the Order of the Red Banner and her crew were made members of the Order of Koschéj because of that."

"A real _**lady**_...!"

Eyes locked on a deliriously happy Akatsuki, who looked as if she got a whole decade's worth of Christmas, commissioning day and launching day presents all at once. As people blinked, Johnston chuckled. "You gotta excuse Tsukiko there, ma'am!" the American destroyer stated as McGonagall sent her a curious look. "She's always trying to make herself act like a proper lady even at this early stage of the game! To actually meet a shipgirl with 'Lady' in the name..."

"Da, Comrade Professor," Hibiki added. "To Stárshaja Sestrá, to meet someone as her would truly be khoroshó."

McGonagall perked. "I thought you were Japanese, Lieutenant Akamatsu."

"After the war, Himeko was turned over to the Soviets, Sensei," Ikazuchi said...

...then everyone gasped as a flash of fire and energy made people's heads snap towards the doors. "Ah! Just in time for dinner!" a smiling Albus Dumbledore then declared before he stopped, surprised to see the considerable crowd of shipgirls now enjoying meals with his staff and students. Including six rather massive women who clearly had to be dreadnought battleships of some sort; the Iron Crosses on their uniforms and the familiar German state emblems on their jackets quickly told him their origins. "Oh, dear...!" the aged teacher then breathed out. "Please don't tell me something happened..."

"Good and bad, Professor," Rubeus Hagrid said with a grin from the head table.

"Oh?! How so, Hagrid?"

"He's gone, Albus. Lady Negako saw to that."

That was Filius Flitwick, who was giving the headmaster a knowing look. Dumbledore blinked. "Harry...?"

"He's in the Hospital Wing, Headmaster," Draco Malfoy reported. "Something that the Dark Lord did to him was burned out of his scar when the Earth Angel struck him down after Miss Hessen blasted Professor Quirrell with her cannons."

"The Dark Lord was possessing Professor Quirrell, sir," Pansy Parkinson added.

Hearing that made Dumbledore sigh as he seemed to age two decades all at once. "I never sensed it. Then again, Marshal Yomigawa couldn't do anything when she investigated Harry's scar...!" As many in the Great Hall tensed on hearing THAT woman's name, he sighed. Much that he didn't care to tell everything that he knew willy-nilly to the people around them, they all deserved to know something. Raising his voice, he began, "It turns out Voldemort..." — here, he ignored the winces from people on saying that man's nom de guerre — "...made use of ebony mesonium crystals to mask what he did to curse Mister Potter and keep his own soul relatively intact after Mister Potter's late mother destroyed his body a decade ago." As some blinked in confusion on hearing that — which was understandable as all the legends of the Boy Who Lived never said anything about his mother's actions that evening; the headmaster knew it was the long buried prejudices against muggleborns that saw to it that Lily Potter would just be regulated to the position of "victim" of Voldemort's attack that effectively ended the Blood War — Dumbledore took a deep breath. "I am truly sorry for not telling people that, but given the horrid furor of the times as the staff and the older students will clearly remember, even speaking of Voldemort's survival would have launched a panic, if not a second round of fighting. With the Abyssals then distracting everyone's attention, it was best to keep it quiet."

Grim nods from many of the people in the room. "As a great prime minister from this land once said during the Second World War, 'In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies'," Heermann noted. As Dumbledore flashed the surviving Fletcher-class destroyer from the Battle off Samar a grateful look, she added, "We call it 'operational security'. Yeah, the Abyssals aren't capable of tapping into our signals, but we always are careful passing things on to make sure that we can win against those things in the future, especially when we finally start wearing them down with numbers. Your headmaster here had to do the same thing concerning the jerk that killed Harry's parents a decade ago, especially given all the people who were ready to march under this Volde-moron's banner!" As surprised laughter escaped many people on hearing the adopted native of Hesse in Germany, Virginia in America and Buenos Aries in Argentina mangle the late dark lord's battle name like that, she crossed her arms. "But now it's over. I'm sure the headmaster will be happy to explain what was going down and do it in a way to make sure another Volde-moron doesn't come along in the future to wreck lives. We've got enough problems dealing with the Abyssals. We can't be wasting time dealing with these dork 'dark lords'."

"Might as well bring the War Hawks back to handle them!" Hoel grumbled.

"Let's not go THAT far just yet, Lieutenant Hoel," Dumbledore breathed out. "In the meantime, I believe I can conclude that the H-class battleships from Germany have finally answered the call to arms. So let's do this...!"

He waved his wand, allowing the proper naval ensigns from Japan, America, Canada, Germany and Great Britain to appear hanging over the tables. As the battleships nodded in delight and the destroyers whooped, everyone rose and applauded...

* * *

 _ **The Hospital Wing...**_

"The H-CLASS ships are here?!"

Negako gazed in amusement at a wide-eyed Prinz Eugen. "Yes, they are. And I would expect you of all people to make use of their proper designation, Catarina: The Hessen-class ships." As the people who had accompanied Nagato to look in on Harry nodded in understanding, she added, "As soon as Ataru finishes with the summoning of the Lion-class from the additional magical energy I was able to gather, then all that remains are the summoning of the Ōmi-class battleships."

"The 'Ōmi-class'?" Nagato asked.

"Tennō's designation for the successors to the Yamato-class." As the eyes of all the Yamato-class ships widened on hearing that announcement concerning what were normally called the Design A-150 ships, Negako added, "Warship number 798 will be designated 'Ōmi'; her human name is Itō Otsune. Warship number 799 will be designated 'Mino'; her human name is Itō Minako. There was a group of naval enthusiasts and graphic designers in Japan who devised the proper hull architecture, including the primary armament planned for that class. Following historical precedence, such weapons will be designated '51 centimetre/45 calibre Type 0 naval rifles'. Defensively wise, they will be as Yasuko was before Operation: Ten-gō."

" _ **HAH!**_ " Musashi crooned out in delight. " _ **WE ARE STILL SUPREME!**_ "

"MUTSUKO!" Yamato shrilled at her sister, a mortified look on her face.

As Shinano and Izumi both deflated in embarrassment at their older sister's very shocking display — especially in front of the last of the Montana-class battleships who currently "served" as part of Harry's personal "fleet" of shipgirls — New Jersey and Yonaga shared an amused look. Before anyone else could comment, Severus Snape took a deep breath. "Will your brother be coming here to announce the human names for the ships you just summoned, Lady Negako?" he asked.

"Yes, he will come..."

She perked on hearing a turbine moan echo through the windows of the hospital wing. "Something has happened..."

«Hey, Reiko!» Enterprise signalled from the area of the landing for the boats that brought freshmen to the Great Hall across the Hogwarts Lake from Hogsmeade; the other carriers that had come with the gang from Sasebo had deployed themselves around the castle to ensure no one would interrupt what was going on. «Ataru's Dynajet is coming in from the east.»

Nagato perked. «Ataru-kun?!» she signalled out. «What's going on?!»

«Lucked out a little bit more in the summoning that Onē-san and I first expected, Reiko-san,» came the amused reply from Negako's last host and adopted brother. «Not only are the British going to celebrate the Lions joining the Royal Navy, Taeko-chan's going to be partying like we won that stupid war. Even got a surprise for Yoiko-san and her sisters as well.»

" _ **HAH!**_ " Musashi howled again.

Yonaga's hand slapped the ash-haired battleship in the back of her head, making Musashi yelp. "That is not the proper thing to do in front of allies, Mutsuko-san," the seventh carrier snarled, making the shorter shipgirl wince.

"Thank you SO much, Yoiko!" New Jersey breathed out...

* * *

 _ **The quidditch pitch, minutes later...**_

Dumbledore smiled as he walked as fast as could be dignified towards the beautiful alien-built multi-environmental tactical transport that had just brought the last host of the Earth Angel to Hogwarts. As the pulse jets at the end of the thick wings shut down, the back boarding hatch opened to reveal a young man in a black kimono and hakama, a black belt securing his top; unlike Negako, Moroboshi Ataru wore no special insignia on the tips of his belt marking him as jōnin in Saikō Jinseijutsu.

"Konban wa, Kōchō-sensei," Ataru greeted.

"Ataru, my boy!" the headmaster said as he held out his hand, which the younger man took so they could share a polite handshake. "You rather surprised everyone that came here with Patricia's help from Japan. Why fly here?"

"Portkeys don't sit well with me after my little time-trip a year ago, sir," he said in accented English. "Did you get a signal down to any of the Royal Navy girls like Mary or Charlene? Given what I was able to pull off with Onē-san's help..."

Almost in answer, a flash of phoenix fire produced two smiling battleships of the Great War generation, one a veteran of Jutland and one who had been built with the lessons learned in that battle. Much to Ataru's surprise, they weren't alone; a blonde German fast battleship had accompanied her former opponent from the Battle of the Denmark Strait to this meeting. "Ataru!" Hood called out with a wave of a hand as she ran over, with Warspite and Bismarck coming at a slower pace.

He chuckled as the beautiful, tall and bespectacled blonde battlecruiser-turned-fast battleship embraced him, they sharing a chaste kiss on the lips before Hood tried to squeeze the life out of him with a hug. As Dumbledore's eyes twinkled in profound amusement on seeing the pride of the Royal Navy act like a very happy teenager netting a date with a handsome quidditch player, Ataru yelped. "Hey, Mary! Go easy! You keep squeezing me like that, I'll have to put my armour on!"

That made Hood pout even if she let him go. "I can't kiss you that way!"

"Oh, stop it, Mary!" Warspite said as she came up, leaning on the cane she used to help compensate for the damaged rudder that had plagued her both as ship and as shipgirl. "Just because he was so nice to make the admirals all wake up to the fact that we were human as much as we were warships doesn't give you leave to drag him off to a hotel and ravage him to your heart's content!" She winked as her blue eyes twinkled while Bismarck was trying desperately not to laugh at her former enemy's antics. "At least wait until you can get him away from the little ones here before you do that!" she whispered.

Dumbledore and Bismarck laughed as Ataru and Hood both blushed. Heavy footfalls then made everyone turn to gaze up the boarding ramp of the Dynajet that the Terran tag race champion had used to get here from Japan. "So we're on decent earth again," a voice with a noticeable Tyneside English accent stated as Hood's, Warspite's and Bismarck's radar detected the presence of a large battleship approaching them. "Much that flying in low Earth orbit was interesting..."

"Stop that, ma chère sœur," a voice with a mix of French and Merseyside then stated as footfalls announced that the other five battleships of Britain's next-to-last dreadnought design were moving to disembark. "Given what happened when our German counterparts were summoned, it was best to get home as soon as possible so we can aid in the defence of the Realm."

Warspite nodded. "Memories, Régine?"

That earned her a daring smile from Téméraire as she came down to stand to Ataru's left, with Lion falling in on the right of the young man from Japan. The four other ships of the class — Conqueror, Thunderer, Bellerophon and Erin; the last two had never been named when the order for them had been cancelled in mid-war, with the names chosen by British school children via on-line survey — formed on either flank. Seeing them as a group, Bismarck tried not to grin too much on noting that yet again when it came to British Commonwealth ships, eyes and hair colours were easily influenced by the their heraldic insignia. Using the special sight that allowed her to take note of a shipgirl's original form, the lead ship of her class was quick to nod in approval at the fact that the Lion-class battleships had come in a modified B3 design from 1944, with a super-firing turret aft to make them the equals of the just-returned Hessen-class ships in terms of number of naval rifles they shipped. That seemed more than fair in the eyes of the namesake of Germany's famous Iron Chancellor. While the British had tried to prevent another battleship arms race in the late 1930s, they deserved to have ships that could easily stand up to the Yamato-class or the Montana-class, which would give the Royal Navy a much higher strike capability against the enemy.

"Strange," the current namesake of a French third-rate ship-of-the-line that had been captured by the British in 1759 breathed out. She possessed well-cropped blonde hair with a golden sheen, her eyes a brilliant sky blue shade. Like her older sistership, she had on a uniform that hailed to the days of the Age of Sail when Horatio Nelson led his fleet against the French and Spanish at Trafalgar, though it was cut in a way that displayed her well-muscled hull quite well; in every effect, the woman given the name "Régine Sabran" by Ataru was as imposing as any of the Yamato-class battleships. "The echoes of my past-selves up to when my Bellerophon-class self fought in the Grand Fleet at Jutland are dancing in the back of my mind, yet I clearly remember being 'born' when my keel was laid at Cammell Laird before the second go-around with the Boche started."

"How are Margarethe and her sisters?" Conqueror asked with a touch of a brogue in her voice; she would have been laid down at John Brown and Company near Glasgow in 1940. Her uniform was a mixture of a Great War naval officer's uniform with the flash-protected work dress of a submariner from recent times. Given what the latest namesake of the rusty-haired battleship with the pale eyes had done in the Falklands War, it was understandable that she bore submariner's dolphins as tattoos on her lower arms. "Wasn't too much of a shock for them, was it, Charlene? Especially with how much the Russians influenced how they came out when Lady Negako finally brought them here before this Riddle wanker tried to interfere."

Warspite shook her head. "No, Rhoda, no issue." The second of the Queen Elizabeth-class had been briefed by long-range signal by Nagato. "Margarethe used her guns to vaporize the body of the poor chap this Voldemort fellow was possessing to get his hands on some treasure the professor here was safeguarding for a friend...but other than that, the summoning went through alright. What's this about some other girls coming to Sasebo, Ataru?" she then asked the last host of the Earth Angel.

Ataru chuckled before he looked into the Dynajet. "Taeko-chan! Are those girls finished yet?! We got meals on in the castle!"

"Just a sec', Ataru!" a woman's voice called back. "Taeko's trying to pry Akane and Shiho away from the damned cockpit!"

Warspite, Hood and Bismarck blinked in confusion...

* * *

 _ **London, the Headquarters of the Ministry of Magic, that moment...**_

" _ **WHAT?!**_ "

This was definitely not a good day for Cornelius Fudge.

"It's true, sir," Albert Runcorn reported. "Corban Yaxley, Horace Gibbon, Alecto Carrow, Lancelot Jugson, Thorfinn Rowe and Lord John Avery are in the infirmary. Several others as well, but I didn't get names. The mediwizard hesitates to have them moved to Saint Mungo's until he's satisfied they'll be safe to transport. Something burned through what was left of the Dark Marks on their arms about an hour ago. According to what he told me, their magic seems to be feeding on itself..."

That made the elderly minister gape in horror on hearing that before he sank into his chair. "Great Merlin! That's terrible! All those good people...!" he hissed out as he tried not to imagine what running the various elements of the Ministry of Magic would be like without their wisdom. And their money, of course; all of them were considerable contributors to his original campaign that got him the top chair a year before and gladly helped support him to maintain his post in the face the Abyssal War and the growing fear of the muggles discovering them. "Tell Master Storton to be very careful with them, Albert. Care for them as much as possible. We can't afford to lose them, not NOW of all times! Tell them we're praying for them..."

The auror that was now the chief of Fudge's protective detail nodded. Like other descendants of long wizarding lines, Runcorn had a certain worldview which had been battered constantly by harsh Reality over the last few years, especially given the sheer number of funerals for brother and sister aurors and obliviators he had been forced to attend since the first mass attacks of the Abyssals began five years ago. Seeing how much the Hufflepuff alumnus that succeeded the long-disgraced Millicent Bagnold as the leader of Britain's wizards and witches had tried to keep it together, it gave the younger man hope; his respect for the proper way of doing this was well-known to the leaders of the Sacred Twenty-eight Families who held the reigns of power in the Wizengamot. Merlin help them all if some radical who followed Albus Dumbledore's ideas of working openly with the muggles when it came to dealing with the Abyssals was elected. That was as much of a guarantee of the return of the Dark Times of Magic as having Yomigawa Tsukiko recall her army to duty to finish what she started in 1939...!

"I'll pass that on, Minister."

Fudge blinked, then nodded. "Thank you, Albert. Go on."

With that, the younger man walked out of the room. Shaking his head, Fudge reached into his desk drawer to draw out a small bottle of Ogden's firewhisky. Pouring himself two fingers of the powerful drink, he swallowed it immediately, allowing the magically-charged alcohol to soothe his nerves and let new strength flood his limbs. "Damn...!" he hissed out. "All of them had been accused of supporting Lord Thingy after that monster disappeared a decade ago..."

He shook his head. Cornelius Fudge hadn't anything to do with the trials of the many Death Eaters that had been forced to face the bar of justice after Voldemort had been destroyed by Harry Potter; at that time, the Hufflepuff alumnus had been in charge of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. His only real contribution to that wonderful event was the capture of young Harry's godfather Sirius Black, who had shown his true colours when he killed Peter Pettigrew shortly after the poor child had been orphaned, then rescued by Dumbledore's people to be secured safely in the muggle world...!

A sudden chill then warped through his office, making him shudder as he looked around for a moment. Seeing nothing of significance, Fudge shook his head. "Have to speak to Cattermole! Damned heating charms aren't working right..."

Unseen by him, a silvery wisp of smoke-like energy flowed along the floor under his desk, projecting an aura that would have even the most powerful magical shuddering in horror for reasons that had long been forgot to common society...

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

"This is a disaster..."

"Maybe not."

Hearing that from Lucius Malfoy, Dolores Umbridge gazed sharply at him. "Aren't you bothered by this, Lucius?" the senior undersecretary wondered. "Several of your closer friends and allies in the Wizengamot struck down suddenly like that?!"

"Of course I'm concerned, Dolores," the patriarch of the Malfoy Clan of Avebury stated as he tried not to allow his personal distaste for this odious woman to overcome his sense of self-discipline. His left arm was throbbing as if someone had stabbed an iron poker into his now-wrecked Dark Mark, which had literally torn itself apart an hour ago, knocking him out for several minutes before his house elf Dobby helped revive him. "Given the many false accusations levied on Uncle John and the others a decade ago, seeing something like this happen to them would just embolden Dumbledore's allies to press through his insane ideas concerning working more closely with the shipgirls." He tried not to smirk on seeing the disgusted look cross his host's face on his mentioning those remarkable beings. "We all know what would happen if we follow the Canadian path, don't we?"

Umbridge looked ill as that comment sank into her heart. Try as the International Confederation of Wizards might to make the Ministry of Magical Affairs in Québec City toe the line when it came to this ongoing conflict with the Abyssals, the muggle-loving idiots in that country just laughed it off and allowed their magical battleships — now shipgirls — to roam the oceans without any sense of control, to say anything of doing what should be their "proper" duty and enforce the Statute of Secrecy as their crews had splendidly done during the muggle world wars in the previous century. Calls by leaders of the ICW in Geneva to have those creatures fall officially under the control of the pan-national organization were scoffed off by Québec City and voted down by everyone from Latin America, Africa and most of Asia, not to mention the former Soviet states. Much that Umbridge didn't care to have Europe's wisdom looked down at by the rest of the world, it was understandable that leaders of other nations acted that way. Thanks to Yomigawa Tsukiko and her army, the lessers in those nations had been "freed" from any positive influence by Europe, ultimately reverting things to the hectic days in the Eighteenth Century when the ICW and the European powers who were at the apex of magical theory did their best to enforce a uniform way of doing things worldwide.

If it hadn't been for Grindelwald and that thrice-damned witch from Japan...!

...to say anything of that mudblood farmer's daughter from Russia, Svetlána Múrometsa...!

"No, we won't," the senior undersecretary stated. "There are people working to undermine Cornelius' control over things. They don't see the danger allowing the muggles to learn of magic thanks to those damned shipgirls. Do you really think muggles will accept us after they learn of how much they've been allowed to 'suffer' because our people found dealing with the Abyssals too much at times? Never! It'll be the Salem witch trials all over again, this time worldwide! Not even those muggle-loving fools in Canada would be able to escape, save for someone like Supreme Mugwump Thompkins given her affiliation to that monster Raeburn." She tried not to shudder. Finding out what the current status of that team of metahumans was impossible since Umbridge had no friends in Canada. Attempts by her to use mercenaries to infiltrate the Wizengamot in Québec City were detected with ease by those accursed Foresters who served as the Dominion's magical militia in peacetime and fighting army in wartime. Given the state of war that had been declared by Fudge's counterpart there five years ago...!

Malfoy tried not to openly react on hearing his host immediately condemn the Protector of All Life like that. While he did support the preservation of the "proper" way of doing things when it came to all living beings in the United Kingdom, the current patriarch of the Malfoy Clan didn't see himself as any sort of fool. His father's and grandfather's many tales of the muggle banker's daughter from Ontario and later resident of British Columbia who had found the Tear of the Stars in 1889 to gain power equal to the elder gods filled him with both dread and wonder when it came to how much muggles were advancing in many realms, especially when it came to the development of non-magical metahuman powers as had happened during the rise of the "mystery men" in the years leading up to Grindelwald's War. Given how much the War Hawks had gone out of their way to defend helpless British magicals when they had finally cleared out the Übermenschen from Canada in 1944...!

Mentally shaking his head to turn away from such introspection, Malfoy tried not to sigh. He had FELT his former master's death-shriek before that whatever-it-was that ripped apart his Dark Mark knocked him out. It was infinity worse than it was ten years ago when Voldemort had been defeated by Harry Potter's late mother. Given the absence of any HINT that the Dark Lord was still alive after he had woken up, it had told Malfoy something he had privately dreamed of for years...

He was finally free.

But...what would he do now...?

« _ **Step out of that office, Lucius.**_ »

He tensed on sensing that powerful Legilimency probe surge into his mind...

« _ **You best step out of there, Lucius**_ ,» that voice — which nearly chilled him to the core of his being on recognizing the beautiful mixture of eastern Québec and southern Irish used by the spiritual "grandmother" of all super battleships — then urged. « _ **I have some private business with that disgusting toad. I don't think your son will like it if you became a casualty of the situation. After all I did for him a year ago at Tinworth Beach, do you really want him to suffer more?**_ »

"Lucius...?"

He perked before an embarrassed blush crossed his face. "Apologies, Dolores," he said as he rose to leave. "I just remembered I had to go visit Malcolm Parkinson about potential business opportunities in France."

Umbridge blinked, not sensing what was about to come down on her head. "Oh, of course! Don't let me stop you."

With that, he rose to leave, trying not to openly shudder as he wondered what was about to befall the senior undersecretary at the hands of the now-human flagship of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron...

...the shipgirl that had saved his precious son from the Abyssals.

* * *

 _ **Back at Hogwarts, an hour before nightfall...**_

"Oh, I'm so excited! To get the chance to tour this beautiful place...!"

Hearing Shinano's jittery words, the Gryffindors all smirked as they led the small troupe of shipgirls towards the main entrance into their house's common room, guarded as always by the Fat Lady's portrait. Harry Potter was in the lead, walking hand-in-hand with Hoppō, with Nagato staying close to them. Leading them was a smiling Percy Weasley, who bowed politely to the portrait. "Forgive me, my lady. We have honoured guests with us today. Password is 'Oddsbodikins'."

She perked on hearing that, then she smiled. "You may pass...!"

"Ah! Pretty Magic Picture Lady!"

The Fat Lady gasped before she looked around Percy to see the pale-skinned child standing hand-in-hand with her house's most famous current student. "Er...!" she began before she flustered as the underlying magic of the castle immediately updated her about what had happened on Hallowe'en evening. "Oh, my! You actually stopped that horrible troll from attacking the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins when you came to the castle in October?! I didn't know that, Miss Yamamoto...!"

Hoppō grunted. "He was stinky and mean! He bopped Hoppō..."

Another gasp escaped the Fat Lady. "He HIT you?! No wonder you thrashed him!"

A determined nod answered her. "Hoppō bopped him back and took him to Big Brother to make him learn how to be nice! Mama took him out before he hurt Big Brother's friends when they were having nice candy and food on All Hallows Eve..."

"Elizabeth, who is currently inside the freshman boy's dorm?"

Heads snapped over. "What is it, Negako-sensei?" Yūdachi asked.

Hearing that name made the shade of the woman born Elizabeth Spriggs during the English Reformation gape before she beamed. "Lady Negako! I heard the rumour you had got your own body at last, but I scarcely believed it until now...!"

"Madame, please," Yonaga quickly cut in. "Negako-sama has just detected someone who might not have the authorization to be in your house's dormitories. Can you see who might be there to ensure none of Harry's peers are being threatened?"

"Wait! I solemnly swear I'm up to no good!"

Heads snapped over to Ron's and Percy's brothers Fred and George, both of whom had a sheet of parchment held between them. Hermione Granger peeked between them at it, then she gaped. "God! Did you make this?! How could you...?!"

"It's him again," George instantly said in a voice that caused everyone to freeze.

"Him who?!" Percy demanded.

"Some chap named Peter Pettigrew, Percy," Fred said with a voice as equally cool as that of his brother, which made the others of their house instantly shudder. That was understandable; to hear the Weasley twins speak seriously was something that would scare the living heck out of any other member of the house of the brave. "We got this map from the Marauders via Filch," he added, wishing that he didn't have to reveal his and his twin's primary ace card to their rule-loving elder brother. Still, given that the _**Earth Angel**_ just sensed something off going on in their brother's dorm...! "Ever since the start of this year, his name's been showing up on the map here every once in a while, but he's not a student or member of the staff..."

"He WAS a Gryffindor, Fred. That was when Harry's parents were alive."

Eyes locked on Nagato, who now had a stunned look on her face. "Mama..." Harry said as he looked up at her. "Isn't Uncle Peter supposed to be _**dead**_?! He was one of the people Dad's old best friend killed just after Dad and Mum died!"

« _ **He is not as dead as one might believe, Young Master Harold.**_ »

Everyone perked on hearing that echoing voice...

...before a chill as brisk as the Arctic in mid-winter suddenly surged through the foyer just as silvery vapour-like tendrils of energy began to rise up from the flagstone floor. As the magicals all began to cower on sensing something seize them with a power that only the lost Dementors who had once inhabited the island of Azkaban were said to possess, the Fat Lady turned as white as the toga-like robe she wore in her portrait. "Oh, Merlin, no...please, no! Not them! Not THEM...!"

"It's okay, Pretty Magic Picture Lady!"

Eyes locked on Hoppō, who had moved protectively before her shivering brother. "Oi, Hoppō-chan, you know what they are, poi?" Yūdachi asked as the shipgirls braced themselves for action. "Are they good poi or bad poi?!"

The young child Abyssal nodded. "Poi! Good poi! Best poi!"

As the pink-haired destroyer sagely nodded, the chill that had seized the magicals faded just as the vapours rising from the floor soon began to take human form. And the forms of people who wore "muggle" clothing from the time that the Fat Lady's human-self lived. « _ **Please forgive us, Lady Spriggs**_ ,» one dapper-dressed man in the uniform of a knightly officer of the court of the first Queen Elizabeth said as he drew off his feathered hat and gracefully bowed to the portrait, making her blush at such a show of polite manners. « _ **Much that we know that Her Majesty's Magical Subjects seemed to have forgotten us in recent years due to those ungodly creatures that Her Majesty's Shipgirls and their wonderful allies worldwide now fight, we're here on the Queen's Business seeking a Traitor to the Realm who is now darkening the walls of this good school of magic with his vile presence. He is the one the Young Masters Frederick and George just identified.**_ »

"Hoppō, who are these beings?" Nagato asked.

Hoppō smiled at her guardian. "Hollows."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"You mean like in _Bleach_?" Fubuki asked, her skin paling.

"No, Fujiko," Negako calmly said as she moved to place herself between the magicals and the visiting spirits. "Even if they were 'muggle' in their mortal lives, the Hollows of Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren are a significantly different type of yōkai than what you and your friends have sometimes encountered at Yokosuka since Harry came to live with Reiko." She then politely bowed to the leader of this particular troupe before she gave him a knowing look. "You are Walter Raleigh, I believe."

He perked before he bowed back. « _ **In my mortal life, I was he, Lady Negako.**_ »

As some of the shipgirls gaped on recognizing the name of the famous landed gentleman and once-confidant of the Virgin Queen who spearheaded England's first attempts at trying to settle what later became the Commonwealth of Virginia in America, Negako nodded in understanding. "Did you ever learn what magical ultimately acted against you that saw you fall victim to Salazar's spells as placed upon the whole of the land when you were executed in 1618, Walter?"

« _ **I know not the villain's name, my lady**_ ,» the deceased and transformed native of Devonshire answered. « _ **No doubt, he was one of the so-called 'purebloods' who were happy to play their stupid games in hope of trying to influence the Crown in directions that would have brought harm to all of Her Majesty's Subjects. I would have loved to have the villain brought to Gonebren Keep to make him understand that one does not DO that to the Queen, but never got the chance.**_ »

"Most unfortunate. I recently heard of the incident four years ago which forced frigate and corvette shipgirls of the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy to rescue the prisoners of Azkaban when the North Sea Princess seized the island and slaughtered the Dementors," Negako stated. As the magicals gaped on hearing that shipgirls actually _**rescued**_ the prisoners of the now-wrecked and lost magical prison near the Shetland Islands, the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu noted, "They were moved to Gonebren after Her Majesty was alerted by Charlene Boleyn, the kami born of Her Majesty's Ship _Warspite_. I also know young Harry's godfather Sirius Black was one of the prisoners. If Peter Pettigrew is alive, how could Sirius have 'killed' him?"

« _ **He did not, my lady.**_ » Here, the transformed ghost gazed sadly on Harry, who was now gaping in dumbfounded shock at that revelation. « _ **Nor did the Most Honourable the Marquess Black kill the innocent bystanders he was accused of striking down that day. Much less betray his oath as Young Master Harold's godfather to the late Marquess James Potter and his wife. An oath sworn to the highest forms of Magic!**_ » As the purebloods gasped on hearing that, Raleigh added, « _ **When those lasses brought the man to us once Her Majesty granted Lady Québec the Keys to the Keep to see the prisoners of Azkaban incarcerated, we realized a terrible miscarriage of justice had happened. While he has remained in the Keep at Her Majesty's request until such time as the true villain of that horrid event was discovered — which you so graciously helped see happen when you struck down that false 'lord', Lady Negako — His Lordship is an innocent man.**_ » He gazed upon Nagato before he gave her a dramatic bow, which she happily returned with her own bow. « _ **His Lordship cannot thank you enough for all you've done for his godson since you rescued him from those monsters Baron Dumbledore believed might have protected him from the followers of that false lord, Lady Reiko. Know the shipgirls of Japan have an alliance with his family once the fools under Northumberland Avenue are finally brought to heel and made to bow before the Crown as they should have done all along, even with that wretched Separation Act having been passed in 1692.**_ »

"From you, that is not faint praise, Sir Walter," Nagato stated before her eyes narrowed. "Captain Itō, I have a small request."

Yonaga gazed upon her. "Name it, Commander Yamamoto."

"If Sir Walter and his friends are willing, would you care to properly interrogate their prisoner to learn the horrid truth of what happened to my son's birth-parents? I'm sure Lady Negako would make sure he won't escape."

"His magic has turned against him because of my severing the links between Peter and Thomas after I struck Thomas down, Yoiko," Negako added. "He will not have a chance to make use of his magical therianthropic powers to escape."

Hermione gaped on recognizing that term. "He's an _**animagus**_?!"

"Yes, Hermione."

« _ **In fact, Young Mistress Hermione, the villain actually disguised himself as Young Master Ronald's pet rat for all the time he has been 'dead'**_ ,» Raleigh added as he gazed at Ron Weasley, a sad look crossing his face.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **SCABBERS?!**_ " Percy, the twins and Ron screamed as one.

« _ **The same, Young Masters.**_ »

Hearing that, Yonaga hissed. "With your kind permission, Sir Walter?"

The transformed spirit smirked. « _ **Please indulge yourself, Lady Yoiko.**_ »

"My thanks, good sir. Mutsuko-san!"

With that, the carrier and her second-oldest battleship sister charged into the tower. Watching them go, Louisiana blinked before she turned to Nagato. "Um, Reiko, do you realize what Mutsuko and her sister are about to do?"

"I have a strong suspicion, Renée," the older battleship coldly stated. "Would you and Shizuka please escort everyone back to the Great Hall? I'll go drop this lovely depth charge on Professor Dumbledore. Hoppō, stay with Harry."

As she headed off at flank towards the administrative tower with New Jersey right at her stern, Hoppō blinked before she gazed up at her adopted brother. Seeing the stunned look on his face as Harry's friends and many of the destroyers moved to comfort him, the child Abyssal snarled before she moved to walk him hand-in-hand back towards the Great Hall, the others of Gryffindor moving to follow. Seeing them head off, the Fat Lady could only shake her head in sadness...

* * *

 _ **The headmaster's office, thirty minutes later...**_

"Dear Merlin! That poor boy...!"

A clearly shaken Albus Dumbledore blinked before he gazed over his shoulder at a shuddering Pomona Sprout. "Now, now, Pomona. Yes, it was a terrible thing to happen to Sirius, but the Hollows of Gonebren have always been quite fair when they deal with magicals of any stripe. If indeed he was deemed innocent enough for Her Majesty to actually grant him the privilege of being the Master of the Keep, then Sirius will be on his way to full recovery for the years he spent with the Dementors." He shook his head. "Another damned mess from that dratted rebellion that hurt people who shouldn't have been hurt...!"

"He was never given a _**trial**_?!" Minerva McGonagall hissed out. "Just thrown into Azkaban without so much as a by-you-leave?! Judged guilty without evidence being presented...?!" The head of Gryffindor moved to refill her shot glass with the beautiful Kentucky bourbon that New Jersey had gladly provided out of her goat locker to help the magicals steady their nerves after hearing what had happened to Harry Potter's godfather. Especially after Dumbledore was able to get a quick report from Amelia Bones at the Ministry of Magic concerning what befell Sirius Black in the wake of his capture in Birmingham within days of the murder of James and Lily Potter. "What in Merlin's name was Crouch thinking?!" she snarled.

"I don't know, Minerva. But I WILL find out!" Dumbledore sternly declared, his magic flaring around him as he tried not to dwell too much upon yet ANOTHER cause of the horrible misery that had befallen the Boy Who Lived until the day a certain reborn battleship from Japan had rescued him from the Dursleys four years ago. "While I hesitate to play too deeply into the politics at the Ministry, this may be the thing that will shake Cornelius enough to finally start listening to common sense and not the money of those of Voldemort's followers who managed to escape Azkaban with their bribes..."

"The 'Imperius Defence', it's been called," Warspite stated as she calmly sipped her tea. "I've heard that many times from Ronald's father and several others in the Ministry of Magic I've talked to since I first met the lad."

"What about what could have happened to Ron and his family?" New Jersey then asked. "If this Pettigrew asshole was bumming off those people all these years, what else could have happened to Ron's family in the meantime?"

A gloomy silence fell over the scene...

...before the fireplace at one side of the office flared. "Hello! Albus?!" a familiar and friendly man's voice called out from Devonshire. "I just got your message from Amelia! Can I come through?! Molly's with me right now!"

"Please do, Arthur!" Dumbledore bade.

The flames of the portal flared brightly, allowing two people looking a little older than Severus Snape to emerge from their home in Devon. "Ah! Oh, hello, everyone!" Arthur Weasley greeted with a delighted smile before he perked on seeing all the shipgirls present. "Oh, dear! What is this?! Some sort of fleet review?!" he asked...before his voice trailed off on seeing the looks of anger, sadness and frustration on the faces of all his friends. "Did something happen...?"

"Ron's okay, sir," Jersey said as she walked over to squeeze his shoulder in reassurance. "So are Percy, Fred and George." As both Arthur and Molly Weasley immediately relaxed themselves, the second of the Iowa-class battleships took a deep breath. "You had an infiltrator living in your house since shortly after Volde-monkey was put down by little Harry's mom. A guy you might have known from when you were trying to stop the snake-faced jerk: Peter Pettigrew."

Both of Ron's parents gaped. "But...Peter was killed...!" Molly protested.

"He is quite alive, Molly," Dumbledore said as he gazed sadly at her. "He is an animagus. And was one of Voldemort's spies. The Dark Mark was on his arm when Lady Negako discovered his presence in the castle some minutes ago."

"An animagus?!" the patriarch of the Weasleys of Ottery Saint Catchpole exclaimed before his eyes widened. "Scabbers...?"

"The same, Arthur," Snape coldly declared. "The Earth Angel sensed him out after she destroyed the Dark Lord with her spirit-breaker fire-light attack two hours ago. He was possessing Quirinus Quirrell at the time, seeking out an object Albus was protecting for a friend. Turns out he found some way to anchor his soul to this life using the Dark Marks and other objects — including Harry! — to give him a chance to return after Lily destroyed his original body ten years ago!"

Arthur blinked before he gaped. " _Horcruxes_?!"

Dumbledore stared in shock at him. "You know of that magic, Arthur?"

"Bill told me of them once," Arthur explained as he moved to sit down at a nearby couch, shaking his head in disbelief. As Bismarck immediately poured shots of bourbon for the visitors, he shook his head as Molly shuddered in horror. "Horrid things! And one...?!" He turned stark white. "HARRY was a horcrux?! But I thought that was impossible...!"

"Ebony mesonium was involved, Arthur. With that material, practically _**anything**_ is possible."

That made the others in the room wince on hearing the headmaster's declaration. "Is Harry alright?!" Molly asked before she gazed at Nagato. "Much that I'm grateful to Reiko here for caring for the boy like she has, do the shipgirls...?"

"The Earth Angel, Molly," her husband reminded her.

That made one of the last survivors of the Prewetts of Tinworth blink before she relaxed herself. "Thank Merlin for small favours!" she hissed out before she took the bourbon and swallowed it in one gulp. After nodding thanks to Bismarck for another shot, she asked, "Did Marshal Yomigawa sense what was going on, Albus?!" she then asked, making the other magicals in the office gape on hearing her speak so respectfully of the Dark Lady of the Orient. "Given all her knowledge...!"

"Tsukiko did sense it, but didn't have the knowledge to safely remove that thing from Harry's scar, Molly," Dumbledore answered. "If she or anyone from Gringotts in Nagasaki tried it, there was a strong chance of Harry being turned into a squib as a result, if not DYING." As the other magicals in the room winced on hearing of that possible fate, he added, "Negako's gifts as the Earth Angel gave her the power to destroy the horcrux in the scar when she used her skills to destroy Tom's links to his horcruxes and all the Death Eaters through the Dark Marks, thus forever banishing him from this life." As the Weasleys both gaped in delighted shock on hearing that, Dumbledore nodded to the tall silver-haired shipgirl standing near the window opening out towards the Hogwarts Lake. "Leutnant zur See von der Salle here was forced to use her main cannons on Quirinus — whom Tom was possessing at the time — to distract him enough for Negako to deliver the coup de grace."

Arthur and Molly gazed upon the tall shipgirl, quickly sensing what she was by her stature and body build, especially with the presence of Germany's most well-known battleship also in the office. "I'm familiar with many of the flottenmädchen of the Deutsches Marine by both their ship names and human names, Frau Leutnant. With embarrassment, I must confess I don't recognize you," he said as he walked over, hand out in greeting. "May we be so honoured by that name, my lady?"

"Großes Schlachtschiff der Deutschen Marine, first of class, Hessen, mein Herr," the adopted native of Wiesbaden near Frankfurt am Main said as she gripped the man's hand, giving him a gentle squeeze as a friendly smile crossed her face. "My human name as given to me by Markgraf Moroboshi is Christine Margarethe von der Salle. Please call me Margarethe."

Arthur blinked, then his eyes widened. "The Großer Kurfürst-class?!"

"Not as long as what our Russian war-gaming friends devised for _World of Warships_ , Arthur," Warspite stated with a twinkle in her eye. "About the same size as the giant killer now having a delightful conversation with our host's phoenix."

Heads turned to see Chennalton whispering something in a language none of the others in the room could recognize to Fawkes, who was perched on the Canadian super battleship's left shoulder, trilling contently away. "I see..." Arthur breathed out before he gazed in appreciation at Hessen, nodding in delight. "I'm sure that once the Bundesministerium für Magie learns of what you did, Margarethe, you'll be yet the next shipgirl to be awarded the Orden Pour le Mérite Magique."

"WITH Oak Leaves and Diamonds, of course!" Molly added.

That made the just-returned super battleship blink. "'Orden Pour le Mérite Magique', Luise?" she then asked Bismarck.

"It's the national medal for magicals in the Federal Republic, Margarethe," the older battleship explained. "The Orden Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds is the equivalent of anyone in the Wehrmacht being awarded any degree of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross during the war. It's both a medal of valour and a medal of merit in combination. I myself have the basic Orden Pour le Mérite Magique — the equal of the second class Iron Cross from the war — for saving the magical villagers of Rügen a month after I was summoned to the quarterdeck at the Marineschule Mürwik three years ago."

"Of course, out of respect for the Statute of Secrecy, Luisa doesn't wear the White Max with her uniform among normal people," Hood added. "Just as any of us wouldn't wear an Order of Merlin out in the general public."

"Which we are very grateful for, Mary," Dumbledore said as Arthur returned to his seat beside his wife. "Now, let's..."

A pain-filled scream exploded from the direction of Gryffindor Tower. "Yoiko-san must be very happy," Nagato coldly declared.

The magicals in the room all shuddered on hearing that icy declaration...

* * *

 _ **The Great Hall, that moment...**_

"Your godfather's INNOCENT?!"

"Never got a trial, Draco."

Hearing that, Draco Malfoy could only shake his head in horror. Much that he still had a lot of issues with the laissez faire attitudes people such as Albus Dumbledore tried to effectively enforce on all of Britain's wand-magicals — which Sirius Black had supported from the instant he first entered Hogwarts as a freshman two decades ago — the young scion of the Malfoy Clan of Avebury believed intrinsically in the value of family. Harry Potter's godfather was Draco's first cousin once removed; to the Boy Who Lived, the current patriarch of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black of Grimmauld was his second cousin once removed by marriage as Sirius' grand-aunt Dorea Black was the sister-in-law of Harry's great-grandfather Henry Potter.

"Harry, I don't even know what to say to that!" Draco nearly snarled in outrage as several of his female peers from Slytherin looked ready to break down and cry at the idea of an innocent man — a future HEAD OF HOUSE, never mind his being the head of one of the Sacred Twenty-eight Families! — being sent to a literal hell on Earth named "Azkaban". To say of his later being moved to an even worse hell on Earth named "Gonebren"; people of all the traditional families had always been taught to be wary of THAT particular piece of magical real estate deep in the moors of Cornwall! "Did Professor Dumbledore know?!"

Harry shook his head. "He didn't, Draco-chan," Fubuki said. The destroyers who had come to Scotland from Japan were now guarding all the Gryffindors and the younger years from the other houses who got the news of what was now happening thanks to the paintings and the many ghosts who haunted the castle grounds. Nearby, the six Lion-class battleships and the five Project G15 aircraft carriers — officially designated the "Sekihō-class" thanks to the lead ship, who emerged in kanmusu form as a near-perfect replica of Hayashi Kanami's would-be fiancée Tendō Akane — who had been summoned two hours ago at Sasebo were enjoying filling meals thanks to the castle's large troupe of house elves; the other Hessen-class battleships were being given a tour of the castle by prefects from all the houses. "Reiko-san's filling us in on details by secure radio right now." She focused on Ron Weasley. "Your parents are here, Ron-chan. They're relieved you're alright."

Hearing that made the ginger-haired freshman blink before he sighed. He was still in a state of shock over what had been revealed a half-hour before by Moroboshi Negako and the Hollow that had once been Sir William Raleigh. "Can't believe that Scabbers was actually an _**animagus**_...!" he hissed out as Hermione Granger gave him a supportive squeeze on his shoulders. "And he actually betrayed Harry's dad and mum to You-Know-Who?! We had a TRAITOR in our house all this time...?!"

"The truth will come out this time, Ron," Blaise Zabini declared. As people knew, he was both heir to his own family seat in the Wizengamot through his mother Vanessa, plus potential heir to four higher seats thanks to four of his six stepfathers, all of whom had died in defence of the Realm against the Abyssals before the shipgirls came to literally save the day at the Battle of London five years ago. "There's no way in hell that even Umbridge could sweep something like THIS under the rock!"

"Why would that disgusting toad try that, Blaise?" Susan Bones asked.

"Because it makes the Ministry look totally incompetent," Draco warned. "Director Crouch is the current patriarch of one of the Sacred Twenty-eight Families, Susan. If it's known that he screwed up like _**that**_ , it brings into question everything the Wizengamot has done since the Ministry's founding after the Statute went into effect. It'll be just as bad to us as the effective destruction of Rappaport's Law was to the Americans in 1942 when the Übermenschen attacked and nearly slaughtered the Magical Congress in support of Minister Grindelwald's efforts to break down the Statute and expose us all to the muggles."

"You know it's not going to be that bad, Draco," Kevin Entwhistle mused from nearby as Justin Finch-Fletchley nodded in agreement. "We've shown you all the chat rooms conversations about how normal folk view magical folk."

The young scion of the Malfoy Clan smiled. "I want to believe it, Kevin."

"We all want to believe it," Pansy Parkinson added. "But it's so hard to change years, decades and centuries of thought..."

"You got all the British shipgirls on your side, you know."

Heads snapped over to the smirking American destroyer with the reading glasses over dark eyes and shaggy brown hair in a halo over her face, her slightly tanned skin indicative of her twenty-one years serving in the Armada de la República Argentina. "We know, Lieutenant Heermann," Daphne Greengrass noted. "And the shipgirls of the First Battleship Squadron as well. Even if everyone in the ICW from Europe have screamed to the Canadians to have those ships do their jobs...!"

Helpless shrugs rolled the shoulders of many of the pureblood students there. "Something's not poi here," Yūdachi warned as her sea green eyes narrowed. "What's wrong, guys?" she then gently asked. "You're holding something back."

That made Draco and his friends all tense before they seemed to fret for a moment, unsure as to what to say even to these remarkable beings who were the only ones capable of stopping the advances of the Abyssals on all mankind...

"Lady Erinsville saved us all."

Heads snapped over. "Vince!" Theodore Nott hissed out.

Harry blinked, then he got up and walked over to stand in front of Vincent Crabbe. "Oi, Vince! It's all poi," he said as he squeezed the taller freshman's shoulder in support. "One of the Ryūseizen saved all your lives?! When did it happen?"

The heavyset boy shuddered before he sighed. "About a year ago, Harry. Just before we all went to Diagon to get our school supplies," he then explained in a quiet voice. "We were all at our family cottages at Tinworth Beach; that's near Penzance. One night, the Abyssals came to...! To..." He then shuddered before looking away, hiding the tears that brimmed in his eyes as he tried to put words to what he now felt, especially when it came to how such would affect his family's future.

"To kill you all."

That was Hibiki. "Himeko-nēchan...!" Harry hissed.

The silver-haired destroyer firmly shook her head before she came over to place warm hands on Vince's shoulders, making him gaze deeply into her silvery-blue eyes. "They came to kill you all," she said in a quiet yet firm voice as she focused all her spiritual strength into the young man's body to firm up his courage and get this off his chest. "You are magical. You are also related to those who fought for that nekul'túrnyj dikár' the Ángel Zemlí just destroyed a couple hours ago. Those people were touched by chjórnyj mezón, which affected their minds and made them more willing to go along with what that nekul'túrnyj dikár' wanted. Did the Abyssals try to attack you using these things?" She then held up an aircraft recognition card.

Vince nearly turned white on seeing that dark image there. "G-g-guys...!"

Others got up to look. "Oh, bloody hell!" Genevieve Walker, a pretty fourth year from Slytherin who was one half of that house's answer to the Weasley twins, then snarled. "Yes, Lady Hibiki!" she spat out as she pointed a shaky finger at the recognition drawings of the V-1 flying bomb that the former Soviet destroyer had just displayed for her younger housemate. "We were all attacked by dozens of these things! If it wasn't for Lady Erinsville, we'd all be dead right now."

Horror crossed the destroyers' faces. "Poi...!" Yūdachi hissed.

"They're escalating this!" Johnston snarled.

"We can't let Erinsville-sensei and the others fight this alone!" Mutsuki snapped.

"They gotta get the War Hawks back! There's no other way to finish this!" Hoel growled. "If they start lobbing meson Katies at everyone, it's gonna spread their shit all over the planet! We can't fight worth shit on land...!"

A whistle caused everyone to come up short, then they turned...

"Relax, people," Moroboshi Ataru said as he walked over to join them from his seat at the temporary table now being used by the Lion-class and Sekihō-class shipgirls. "That part's going to be handled very soon."

"How, Ataru?" Johnston asked.

"Harry."

Heads turned over to allow people to gaze on the seventh carrier of Operation Z. A very satisfied smile was on Yonaga's face. "Come, young admiral," she then bade. "It is time for you to face the one who helped make you an orphan."

Hearing that statement from her, Harry blinked...before he shuddered, then he got up and ran after the aircraft carrier. As the other students all got up from their chairs to follow him out of the Great Hall, Ataru could only shake his head as he shared a knowing look with Kanami, who had been seated between Taihō and Sekihō as they calmly enjoyed their meals...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Kyūsho** — Pressure points in traditional Chinese medicine; **Stárshaja Sestrá** — Elder sister; **Jōnin** — Literally "high ninja", the title bestowed to a ninjutsu-ka with high levels of training; **Ma chère sœur** — My dear sister; **Leutnant zur See** — Lieutenant at Sea, the German Navy ( **Deutsches Marine** ) rank title for an acting sub-lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Navy (NATO rank code OF-1); **Flottenmädchen** — Fleet maidens; **Großes Schlachtschiff** — Large battleship; **Markgraf** — Count of the March, the German equivalent title to a British marquess; **Bundesministerium für Magie** — Federal Ministry of Magic; **Marineschule Mürwik** — Navy School Mürwik; **Armada de la República Argentina** — Navy of the Argentine Republic; **Nekul'túrnyj dikár'** — Uncultured savage; **Ángel Zemlí** — Earth Angel; **Chjórnyj mezón** — Ebony mesonium; **GC** — Short for **Grand Cuirassé** ("large battleship"), the French Navy type name for dreadnoughts in the universe of this story; **PA** — Short for **Porte-Avion** ("airplane carrier"), the French Navy type name for aircraft carriers in the universe of this story.

The "Sojúz-class" mentioned by Fubuki here are indeed the ships nicknamed "Stálin's Republics", the **Project 23 battleships** (AKA the **Sovétskij Sojúz-class** ). As only four hulls were laid down, they're the only ones who could be summoned right away. However, since the Soviet Union had broken up long before they could properly serve their nations, it was decided to split them apart according to which country they were named after as noted in the list below. Of course, the "Sovétskij" prefix to the names were dropped and the names were spelled as per the native language of the ship. As a show of unity, the Russian-style ship type prefixes were replicated with the former LK _Sovétskaja Ukraína_ (now **LK** _ **Ukrajína**_ ) and LK _Sovétskaja Belorússija_ (now **LK** _ **Belaruś**_ ). "LK" would be read as " **Linejny Karabeĺ** " in Belorussian and " **Liníjnij Korabél'** " in Ukrainian.

The **Alsace-class battleships** were the penultimate French dreadnought design. Effectively up-gunned versions of the Richelieu-class battleships, these vessels would have been the same size as a German Bismarck-class fast battleship, but have twelve 380 mm/45 Modèle 1935 naval rifles in three four-gun turrets in the standard "two forward, one aft" arrangement of most battleships in that period. According to the Wikipedia article on this class, six were ordered with four names proposed in honour of old French provinces. I used two of the names proposed in that list, then chose four more names from the list of old provinces that were never chosen for battleship names according to Wikipedia. Two of the names that were proposed in that list were actually revived from a cancelled class of super-dreadnoughts from World War One, the **Normandie-class battleships** ; France's first aircraft carrier, **PA** _ **Béarn**_ , was originally meant to be a Normandie-class battleship.

Fans of _World of Warships_ will draw the connections between the **Sekihō-class aircraft carriers** and the Tier X ship offered in that game, **THG** _ **Hakuryū**_ ("White Dragon"). As people familiar with _WoW_ will know, the _Hakuryū_ is based on the **Project G15** (or "Taihō Kai") armoured carrier concept that was first developed in the early days of the Greater East Asia War to correct the many design issues with _Taihō_ herself. The design itself never left the drawing board due to lack of resources and the whole project was cancelled in the summer of 1943. In the universe of this story, the kami of the five ships that were originally planned (Warship Nos. 5021-5025) were as influenced by the designers of _WoW_ as the Hessen-class were as noted in the previous part. Their names followed the "phoenix" theme in their prototype's name as follows (listed by warship number):

No. 5021 **THG** _ **Sekihō**_ ("Red Phoenix")  
No. 5022 **THG** _ **Ryōhō**_ ("Gold Phoenix")  
No. 5023 **THG** _ **Hihō**_ ("Jade Phoenix")  
No. 5024 **THG** _ **Shihō**_ ("Amethyst Phoenix")  
No. 5025 **THG** _ **Rokuhō**_ ("Emerald Phoenix")

In this part, I mention the German equivalent of the Order of Merlin, the **Orden Pour le Mérite Magique**. Like the Order of Merlin, the Orden Pour le Mérite Magique is Germany's highest magical-only award, though in the combined magical-normal order of precedence, this order ranks below pure-military valour decorations like the Iron Cross and its derivatives. The name of the order itself is French and literally translates "For the Magical Merit". I based this award after a similarly-named top-ranked award of merit from the old Kingdom of Prussia, the **Orden Pour le Mérite** , which was nicknamed the **Blauer Max** ("Blue Max"); this was the order that the famous World War One fighter ace **Manfred Albrecht** _ **Freiherr**_ **von Richthofen** AKA the **Red Baron** (1892-1918) was given a year before his death. Going along with the inspiration of the Blue Max, the Orden Pour le Mérite Magique is nicknamed the **Weiß Max** ("White Max") due to its medallion, a silver-white Maltese cross bordered in black, which is slung from a neck ribbon. Unlike the Blue Max, the White Max does not bear any markings on the cross.

Like the Order of Merlin, the Orden Pour le Mérite Magique is awarded in three classes (listed from highest to lowest, with the equivalent Order of Merlin post-nominal letters for comparison):

MO1 — The **Orden Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds** (in German, _Orden Pour le Mérite Magique mit Eichenlaub und Brillanten_ )  
MO2 — The **Orden Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves** ( _Orden Pour le Mérite Magique mit Eichenlaub_ )  
MO3 — The **Orden Pour le Mérite Magique**

And the shipgirls introduced here:

 _ **BELARUS  
**_ **LK Belaruś** — Evgenija Janovna Gamarnik

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **HMCS Lady Elgin** — Elaine Sarah Harlan  
 **HMCS Lady Jane** — Jane Jennifer Smith

 _ **FRANCE  
**_ **GC Alsace** _—_ Jeanette Lucie Dreyfus  
 **GC Bourgogne** _—_ Michelle Isabella de Bourgogne  
 **GC Orléanais** _—_ Cecile Bertrade Capet  
 **GC Guyenne** _—_ Maria Violante d'Berry  
 **GC Anjou** _—_ Anna Henrietta d'Orléans  
 **GC Poitou** _—_ Maria Magdalena Joan de Poitiers  
 **PA Béarn** _—_ Germaine Jeanne de Bernadotte

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Ikazuchi** — Akamatsu Ikue  
 **THG Ōmi** — Itō Otsune  
 **THG Mino** — Itō Minako  
 **THG Sekihō** — Ozawa Akane  
 **THG Ryōhō** — Ozawa Ryōko  
 **THG Hihō** — Ozawa Hiroko  
 **THG Shihō** — Ozawa Shiho  
 **THG Rokuhō** — Ozawa Romi

 _ **RUSSIA  
**_ **LK Sojúz** — Sofíja Vladímirovna Orlóva  
 **LK Rossíja** — Raísa Vladímirovna Orlóva

 _ **UKRAINE  
**_ **LK Ukrajína** — Valérija Oleksjíjovna Kirichénko

 _ **UNITED KINGDOM  
**_ **HMS Lion** — Linda Frances Harvey  
 **HMS Téméraire** — Tracy Régine Sabran  
 **HMS Conqueror (1939)** — Christine Rhoda Wreford-Brown  
 **HMS Thunderer (1939)** — Patricia Roberta Mountbatten  
 **HMS Bellerophon** — Anna Marian da Silva  
 **HMS Erin** — Hatice Edith Jah

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Montana** — Frances Marianne Schultz  
 **USS Louisiana** — Renée Madeleine Cavalier


	6. Volunteers Answer the Call to Arms

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, the Great Hall, Sunday 21 May, an hour after nightfall...**_

"I'm sure we can allow the students to stay up a little late this evening, Severus. Given what just happened on the grounds before supper, they'll be too excited at this time to get a good night's rest."

Hearing that from the man who had effectively saved him from the deep pit he had put himself into when he had first pledged allegiance to Voldemort in far more innocent and ignorant days, Severus Snape nodded. "We shouldn't be expecting much of them for the rest of the school year, Headmaster," the potions master then warned with the barest hint of an amused smirk on his normally severe face. "Even if they don't realize the true importance of Lady Negako's actions..."

Albus Dumbledore sighed before he smiled, nodding his thanks as Kongō handed him a cup of beautiful hēichá brought in from China thanks to Moroboshi Ataru. A sedate party was being held in the Great Hall to allow the staff and students to further interact with the many shipgirls who had come to Hogwarts this day, to say anything of the Earth Angel and her last host. "Let them have their innocence. That will be the true victory against Tom and those who still believe in his message. I only pray Captain Itō's warning about revenge attacks on Harry because Tom is truly no more doesn't wind up causing heartbreak for our friends from Japan." He shook his head, a flash of guilt appearing on his face. "Wherever they are now beyond this 'Veil of the Te'a' Negako and Ataru speak of that their adopted race can see with their minds' eyes, I'm sure James and Lily are proud of how much Harry has brought joy and comfort to all those who would gladly fight for us all on the high seas."

"Don't feel guilty over what happened with the Dursleys, Professor," Warspite then stated before nodding her thanks as Kongō handed her a cup of fermented tea from the beautiful service she always carried with her for these occasions. Senior shipgirls from Britain, America, Germany and Japan were seated at the head table alongside the staff; also present was Chennalton, who was currently discussing arithmancy with Septima Vector. Naturally, Nagato was seated at the Gryffindor table beside her son; the current secretary to Gotō Kiichi was now being swarmed by people from all the houses as they bombarded her with questions. "You had to concentrate on keeping Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic together in the face of such an awful rebellion. Given how much fear that Riddle chap and his friends put into all of Her Majesty's Magical Subjects during that time, that you were able to hold it together like you did says much about the character of a lot of people, yourself included."

Dumbledore blushed. "I hardly claim to be perfect, Charlene."

"Um, Professor..."

Heads turned over as one of the Ravenclaw fifth-year prefects, Robert Hilliard, came up to stand close to where Warspite and Kongō were seated. "What seems to be the issue, Mister Hilliard?" Filius Flitwick asked.

"The flying cats are back, sir," the younger man announced, pointing up to the ceiling where the vents that allowed postal owls to fly into the Great Hall were located. "Seems we got a whole pride of them now."

Heads looked up. "Not a pride, kid," New Jersey said with a chuckle. "That's a whole BLIMPRON coming in to visit."

Confusion crossed the faces of many the magicals as hushed voices from the tables began to turn people's attentions to the eight beautiful Maine Coon cats now sitting on the ledge. "'BLIMPRON', Commander Hyde?" Minerva McGonagall asked.

"Patrol airship squadron, Professor," Enterprise translated. "We used helium-filled non-rigid airships — 'blimps' — to patrol the oceans during the Second World War. When they were summoned back, they came back as that."

"Blimey! They're _**shipgirls**_?!" Rubeus Hagrid demanded.

His voice was loud enough to make people hush up. "Hagrid, they're _**cats**_!" Ronald Weasley then protested.

"Technically, they're airship cats, Ron."

That was the Boy Who Lived himself. Hearing that made some of the people began to hiss to others on learning yet about this latest twist when it came to what was being done to fight the Abyssals. "That's weird!" Roger Davies noted from the Ravenclaw table. "All the zeppelins from 7 Wing came back as shipgirls, just like the muggle German, British and American zeppelins from before Grindelwald's War did! How the devil did you Yanks get cats?! Did you do the summoning wrong?"

Warspite blinked before she looked over. "'Seven Wing', young man?!"

"No. 7 Wing (Magical) of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Charlene."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Wait!" Jersey said as the shipgirls all stared at Chennalton. "You guys have magical mud-eaters and magical squids! Now you say you have magical ZOOMIES?!" She shook her head. "You Canucks are just plain WEIRD, Patty!"

As Chennalton chuckled and a lot of the magicals in hearing range all smirked at that observation, the assembled blimp cats leapt off their perches and gently descended towards the head table. As students and staff gasped at such a graceful act, Hoppō pulled out her Reppū plushy and made buzzing noises as if she was escorting the arriving anti-submarine patrol back to their base. As they got closer to their chosen landing zones, the eyes of the aircraft carriers in the hall picked out the insignia of Airship Patrol Squadron 14 on the gondola-shaped rigging slung around their stomachs; the blimp cats of that particular squadron had been deployed to the famous British airship base at Cardington west of north from London, they often working with the Royal Air Force's corps of zeppelin girls and blimp cats in patrolling the British Isles and northwest Europe. As a hush filled the hall at such a sight, the blimp cats daintily landed on the heads of the battleships and carriers at the head table, Chennalton included. Seeing that made the other shipgirls laugh. "I don't recall us being fitted with zeppelin mooring masts in our rigging," Bismarck quietly mused as a contently purring K-109 nuzzled her nose into the blonde battleship's forehead.

"It seems one of them is being used as a post owl, Frau Fregattenkapitän," Snape mused as he indicated K-89, who was currently on New Jersey's head. Lashed to the blimp cat's collar was a rolled sheet of very fine parchment.

Noting that, the second of the Iowa-class battleships took the note off, then snapped open the roll. Gazing at the message, she blinked. "Um, Patty, what the heck is 'No. 74 (M) Squadron'?" she asked on seeing the letterhead there.

"Number 74 (Magical) Squadron," Chennalton explained. "Her Majesty's Canadian Airships Apollo, Boadicea, Cassiopeia, Defender, Eclipse and Forester. They're normally based out of Canso in Nova Scotia close to Cape Breton Island. After they were turned into zeppelin girls, they were attached to 'A' Commando of the Foresters when they were deployed here to help shore up the defences of the United Kingdom until the Royal Air Force was able summon their own blimp cats to help out."

"Even then, we needed more help," Warspite stated as Kongō reached up to gently lift K-112 off her head and allow the blimp cat to relax herself in her lap. As the pretty cat began to purr contently at the British-built battleship's attention, the second of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships reached up to pull K-123 off her forehead. "I trust it wasn't too cold of a flight from Cardington, was it?" she asked as she began to rub the blimp cat's forehead, making the beautiful feline meow.

"What does that message say, Kathy?" Hood asked.

New Jersey scanned it before she shrugged. "It's from Erinsville, Mary, relayed by Defender. 'The issue with a certain toad has been permanently dealt with.'" As Dumbledore and Snape exchanged knowing looks, the second of the Iowa-class added, "She and Lady Elgin will be on their way up here to make sure any of Volde-monkey's friends who might not like the idea of their boss being permanently sent to Davy Jones' locker can't get in to hurt the munchkin or his friends here."

"What toad?" McGonagall wondered.

"Captain Fingal — that, ladies, is the human name Ataru chose for Erinsville, Erin Fingal — is no doubt speaking of Dolores Umbridge, Minerva," Dumbledore stated as he shook his head, imagining what would be Cornelius Fudge's reaction in the morrow. "I'm sure you all remember what happened eight years ago when the members of 'A' Commando helped protect the people at Tinworth Beach during the first time the Abyssals struck coastal communities en masse."

Many of the staff scowled; that incident had almost resulted in Royal intervention in the Ministry of Magic's affairs to stave off a magical war between Britain and Canada. If any of those brave hit-wizards and hit-witches from Québec had DIED...!

"Les Forestiers n'oublient pas," Chennalton stated in French. "Les Forestiers ne pardonnent pas..."

"Et les Forestiers se voient toujours," Snape then finished for the second of the Argo-class battleships, a private smirk flashing across his face for a second; he had NEVER cared for someone like Umbridge. "Translated for those who don't speak French, ladies: 'The Foresters do not forget. The Foresters do not forgive. And the Foresters always get their revenge.'" He sipped his tea. "That is what makes them so feared in magical circles. A part-time yet _**fully-trained**_ militia of hit-wizards..."

"If it wasn't for them, we'd be missing a good number of students now, Severus," McGonagall then reminded him.

A curt nod responded. "Indeed..."

* * *

 _ **Hogsmeade, that moment...**_

"My sincerest thanks, Commander Dreyer! If it wasn't for you girls..."

"Pah! Pay it no mind, Sergeant Shacklebolt," the red-haired shipgirl with the chestnut-brown eyes, draped in a uniform akin to the ceremonial patrol dress of the Royal Navy Military Police with full commander's stripes on the cuffs, said with a smirk as she sheathed her broadsword, mentally dismissing her rigging with its five twin turrets bearing shipgirl-sized BL 13.5 inch Mark V naval guns. "You were all lucky that we were in the area to make sure that Lady Negako's mission to cleanse all the residual death magic in the northern quarter of the Hogwarts school grounds went forward without possible interruption. Seeing these filthy scalawags try to hurt innocent people for whatever silly reason struck their fancy this lovely evening..."

"I'm sure Her Majesty will be more than pleased to see them contained within that delightful institution in Gonebren Moor at Her Pleasure, Kingsley," Conqueror noted as she, Monarch and Thunderer also dispersed their rigging, her own chestnut eyes sparkling with amusement while her other sisters chuckled in dark anticipation at what the platoon's worth of werewolves now lying broken at their feet would experience once they were exposed to the power of the Hollows. Her eye colour was a shared trait between the four Orion-class super-dreadnoughts who now served as a special "monster-hunting squad" loaned by the Navy to MI5. "I just hope those delightful spirits in that place won't mind a late night deposit once we signal them..."

"What was the gunfire down here?!"

Surprised by that concerned shout, the four super-dreadnoughts turned...

"Arizona! As I live and breathe!" Orion said with a cheeky grin on seeing the scarred Pennsylvania-class super-dreadnought approach, accompanied by her sister. "And you brought your sister as well! You missed all the fun!"

Focusing on the well-dressed shipgirls in the ceremonial uniforms of the local version of naval shore patrolmen, Arizona's burning eyes narrowed before she relaxed herself. "Ladies," she politely greeted. "Do you need some help here?"

"No, it was easy to handle," Orion assured her peer from the Great War as Pennsylvania knelt beside one of the wounded werewolves, a woman in her middle years who had lost both her hands thanks to Monarch's sword. One of the aurors who came with Kingsley Shacklebolt when the alarm was sent from Aberforth Dumbledore's tavern that a werewolf pack was running loose in Hogsmeade had used his magic to cauterize the wounds before she bled out before she could be interrogated. "They thought we were 'muggles', thus easy prey. No different than what that Greyback fellow thought before Frida von Seydlitz came here to put paid to that notion. They seemed to be agitated about something, yet it's not the full moon." The shipgirls automatically glanced up to see the waning crescent in the skies to the east of the quaint village on the south shore of the Hogwarts Lake. "We showed them otherwise and we're waiting to get a signal to Marquess Black to get them in gaol."

The aurors perked. "Who do you mean, Commander?" John Dawlish, the second-in-command of Shacklebolt's team, asked.

Orion perked, then she sighed. "Ah, forgive me, Corporal, I forgot." She smirked. "The man you all accuse of betraying young Harry Potter's parents to that Voldemort wanker was an _**innocent man**_." As shocked gasps escaped the witnesses there, the crimson-haired super-dreadnought held up her hand, which made people quiet down. "He was proven innocent by the Hollows of Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren. They were gifted by Headmaster Slytherin when the prison was first created centuries ago to be able to determine the truth of things even better than that delightful veritaserum you use on your criminals..."

"Wait! If Sirius is innocent, who led You-Know-Who to Harry's parents?!"

That was a shuddering Nymphadora Tonks, whose hair was currently cycling through a dozen shades as her face flushed with both outrage and horror at that particular revelation. Even if she was just still a trainee auror who had been pressed into service due to the losses the Corps of Law Aurors had taken over the last decade and more, she understood all the proper legal requirements needed to see someone imprisoned for a crime like what her cousin had been accused of a decade before. "Turns out it was the chap that was given your Order of Merlin for 'dying' while trying to 'stop' Marquess Black after Marquess Potter and his wife died and poor Harry was orphaned, Auror Tonks," Thunderer answered. "Peter Pettigrew. They just found the bastard in the school a couple hours ago; he had disguised himself as a rat and Lady Negako sniffed him out."

That made the aurors tense on realizing someone who might have connections to the Death Eaters had managed to breach Hogwarts' defences, no doubt to find a way to avenge the fall of his master on the Boy Who Lived when he was vulnerable. "Can he be brought to us, Commander Fergusson?" Shacklebolt demanded. "If he is still alive, he'll have to be interrogated."

"There's no need to do that, Officer," Arizona then spoke up. "After Miss Negako sensed the villain's presence inside the Gryffindor freshman boy's dorm room, Commander Yamamoto asked Captain Itō to get in there and find out what was going on. Some of the Hollows of Gonebren were also there. The interrogation was quite thorough and Mister Pettigrew is now mourning the loss of his magic and being made to confront the fact that 'muggles' can hurt him worse than any magical could."

"The little rat-faced bastard deserved it," Pennsylvania added with a touch of disquiet in her voice, as if she didn't want to publicly complement the fifth of the Yamato-class for doing what she had done to the hapless animagus.

Arizona sighed. "Margaret..."

"Let her enjoy her anger, Sonia-san," a strange voice then bade from the direction of the main road that led back to Hogwarts. "The desire for revenge is always high for those who seek to follow the path of the Forty-seven."

People turned...

"Great Merlin...!" Dawlish hissed out.

Shacklebolt breathed out, "The _**Angry One**_...!"

Hearing that nickname applied to her, Yonaga smirked before she flipped off the shuddering mass of humanity that had hung off her shoulder to collapse in a heap of bruised and bleeding flesh on the ground close to Monarch. Her smile widened as shocked gasps of disbelief escaped the locals on recognizing Peter Pettigrew...even if his face was a mangled ruin with all his teeth having been extracted by Musashi's fingers to make him suffer more for what he had unleashed on Nagato's adopted son. She had been accompanied to the village just now by all her sisters save Shinano, who was staying close to Harry Potter. "I was alerted by the noble kami who had once lived as your own great mariner Sir Walter Raleigh that officers of a much more civilized version of the Kempeitai were in this beautiful village carrying out their sacred duties for Her Majesty the Queen," the seventh carrier of Operation Z said as she gave the four local super-dreadnoughts appraising looks, a flash of approval then appearing in her grey eyes. "I assume these lunar canine therianthropes were the cause of you four deploying here this lovely evening, Orion-dono." She gazed with contempt at the wounded werewolves nearby before she gave Orion a knowing look.

"They actually weren't the cause for our being here, I'll admit, Lady Yonaga," Orion stated; she had met enough Japanese shipgirls over the last few years to understand the meaning of that particular honorific. "We were here to help Lady Negako in her task earlier today. Still, it's always a delight to come visit this little town. The drinks served by Master Aberforth at the Hog's Head here are truly divine, especially for those such as we. And given that these creatures are a constant menace to all of Her Majesty's Subjects both magical and mundane, we were more than happy to teach them the error of their ways."

"Did they support the monster that killed Harry-chan's parents?" Musashi asked.

That made Orion hum as she considered that point before she smirked. "We should find out, then," she trilled before kneeling beside one grunting man who had one arm literally ripped off by Monarch before another of Shacklebolt's team cauterized the wound to let him live. With an icy smirk, the crimson-haired super-dreadnought reached down and grabbed the moaning were by the crotch, causing him to shriek out in ungodly pain. "There, there...!" she coolly declared. "Now, if you don't want to me to render you a eunuch with just my hand, you better answer one question, lad: Do you work for Voldemort?"

As some of the magicals around them shuddered on hearing the late dark lord's name, the werewolf rapidly shook his head. "We f-felt...!" he began before another croak of mind-numbing pain escaped him, then he seemed to sag as the energy drained out of him. "We f-felt the D-dark Lord..." he sputtered as Orion eased up with her fingers. "We f-felt him d-d-die...!"

"How's that possible?!" Tonks demanded. "You Know Who never marked werewolves!"

"Answer her," Orion ordered.

The werewolf shuddered. "No...n-not the D-dark M-mark...but he...gave us...!"

"Move away from him, Commander."

Orion's head snapped over...

"Elgin-dono," Yonaga greeted as the other shipgirls gasped at the sight of the woman almost the same height as the seventh carrier, dressed in the dark gunmetal grey skinsuit always worn by a magical battleship of the Dominion.

Gazing with her special sight on the tall and muscular woman with the hair about the same shade of strawberry blonde as New Jersey had — though such was fringed with a lot of grey indicating she had spend decades on the high seas as an actual ship — the lead of her class of super-dreadnoughts who had led the second division of the Second Battle Squadron at Jutland could only gape in disbelief at the echo of the first of what could truly be seen as the world's largest battleship class.

"Been a while since Jutland," she then quipped.

Hearing that, Lady Elgin smirked as her deep green eyes twinkled for a moment while she drew a metal wand forged from her very keel out of the masked holster strapped to her left arm. As the magicals around them relaxed on seeing such a familiar thing being welded even by a shipgirl of all humanoid beings on Earth, the Dweorg-built super-battleship levelled her weapon at the shuddering werewolf. As Orion instantly pulled back, Elgin hissed out, " _ **Mesonium Noir Revelio!**_ "

A bolt of energy lanced into his body, causing it to glow...and a puff of black smoke to emit from somewhere on his right arm below the elbow. Seeing that, Elgin scowled before she turned and began using the same spell on the other werewolves after Orion's sisters moved back from them to not haze up the scan. Yonaga immediately moved to stand next to the other shipgirl's flank as she continued her inspection, getting the same result every time. "It seems Riddle-san marked them as well..."

"That's impossible!" Dawlish snapped. "You Know Who just used werewolves as weapons!"

Elgin blinked before she gazed with a touch of pity at the raven-haired auror while she tried not to shake her head. "That is what the man WANTED you to think, Corporal," she said. "Even if he was dabbling a little too much with ebony mesonium than what was healthy for anyone, he was quite the intelligent fellow. How was he able to make people dance to his tune even with the unfortunate twist of his ancestry, especially given the mugalophobia that still haunts too much of your home society?"

"What do you mean, Lady Elgin?" another auror asked.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," the Canadian battleship answered. "Normal father, nimmib mother descent from the Loyal House of Gaunt of Hangleton, the last lineal descendants of Headmaster Salazar Slytherin." As people listening to this gasped on hearing that revelation, Elgin added, "Twist the name around as an anagram, you get the phrase 'I am Lord Voldemort'." As people around her shuddered again, she added, "His way of mocking those he sought to conquer, I suspect."

Yonaga snorted. "A true rōnin. It is good that Negako-sama burned his soul into nothingness, Elaine-san. What happens to these beings? Will the kami of Gonebren be able to hold them with that cursed material in their veins?"

"Sadly not, Yoiko-san. Much that Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren is quite good in making the malcontents learn how to be productive citizens again, the ebony meson is too deeply embedded in their bodies to not come back to make them go crazy in the future." Elgin gazed on Orion. "To fully heal them, we'll need all the amenities of Quttinirpaaq Penitentiary, Commander." As the aurors all winced on hearing of the place known around the world to match Azkaban and Russia's infamous Spemát when it came to literally being "hell on Earth" to wizarding malcontents, Elgin smiled. "I'll inform my commanding officer to signal Captain Leveson about making the formal prisoner transfer offer so none of the people in MI5 get a little too ruffled over this particular incident. Given how much you and your sisters dismembered this lot, Commander, I'm sure you can hold them in your own cells over in Rosyth until we can get 'A' Commando to send them to Ellesmere to have them put on ice."

"Who is your commanding officer, anyway?" Thunderer wondered.

Elgin smirked. "Rear Admiral Heather Thompkins was asked to take command of the squadron, Commander Fergusson. She answers to Lieutenant General Dean Raeburn as commander of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, augmented by the Ninth Canadian Division (Foresters), the First Canadian Battleship Squadron and 7 (Magical) Wing of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Not to mention units of the Specialized Warfare Regiment of Canada as mobilized by the Crown five years ago."

That made everyone perk. "The _**War Hawks**_ are back?!" Musashi demanded before a haughty laugh escaped her, her fists shaking with delight. "Ha! We will really win this damned war! The Kami are truly now at our side!"

"Thank Merlin," Shacklebolt hissed out...

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, the Gryffindor common room, an hour before midnight...**_

A warning meow from one of the airship cats of ZP-14 seated by the window overlooking the Hogwarts Lake and Hogsmeade beyond made people look up. "Oi! What's up?! You see something?" New Jersey asked from one of the couches.

K-123 gazed her way, then meowed as her faerie crew sent out a message that the second of the Iowa-class battleships was quick to interpret. "She's here, huh?" Jersey then breathed out before shaking her head. "Damn..."

"Who's here, Commander?"

That was Percy Weasley. "Probably Lady Elgin," the namesake of the Garden State reported. "According to what K-123 just sent to me, she's the same ship my task force encountered off Cape Engaño during Leyte Gulf in 1944."

"Here, Commander..."

She turned, then blinked as Hermione Granger placed a book down on the table before the battleship. Seeing the title in gold there, Jersey gaped. " _ **The Leviathan Killers: The Saga of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron (Magical)**_. Holy shit, kiddo! Admiral Harlan actually wrote this one?!" she asked on noting that the author was marked as **F.W. Harlan, CMC**.

"Yes," the dentist's daughter from West Sussex said as she opened the book to where she had placed her bookmark. "Soon as Harry's mother told me that Captain Fingal and Captain Harlan were going to come to the castle, I sought out information concerning potential encounters with yourself or any of the others of your task force currently on the grounds. The Battle of the Philippines in 1944 was when the whole squadron — then under the command of Rear Admiral Francis Joseph Harlan, Admiral William Harlan's son — was massed together to protect normal fighting forces on both sides for the first time since the Second Battle of Dogger Bank in 1916. It's considered the greatest single event in the squadron's history."

"Why the different battle names, Hermione?" Enterprise asked. She, Zuikaku and Shōkaku had come into the common room after being relieved of their over-watch of the castle grounds by Akagi, Kaga and Shinano. "The Australian ships that were there as part of Task Force 44 got the battle honour 'Leyte Gulf, 1944' when it was time to bestow the campaign credits to their ships' companies. Why didn't the Canadians do the same thing if they were there protecting everyone?"

"Actually, the Canadians have always followed a different policy when it comes to naming the honours bestowed to their battleships, Commander Swanson," Hermione answered. "If Captain Fingal, Captain Harlan, Captain Keel and Captain Saint Germain — Erinsville, Lady Elgin, Sunbeam and Sundown — got the battle honour 'Jutland, 1916' for their action at Second Dogger Bank, it implies that they did what they did solely in support of the Grand Fleet instead of treating potential 'victims' of both the Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet equally. Hence, they chose the name 'Dogger Bank, 1916' as the battle honour for that action. Same with Leyte Gulf. Commander Matsuhara, how do you people address that battle?"

"These days, we call it 'Leyte Okikai-sen' or 'Philippine Okikai-sen'," Zuikaku answered. "'Ocean Battle of Leyte' or 'Ocean Battle of the Philippines'. It's also sometimes called 'Shō Ichi-gō Sakusen'; that means 'First Victory Strategy'. That was the official name of the war plan that went into our move to block the Americans from liberating the Philippines."

"So if they were given the battle honour 'Leyte Gulf', it would insult the worldview of all the Japanese soldiers, sailors and airmen who were saved by them during that time," Hermione finished. "Hence, 'Philippines, 1944'."

Jersey nodded, then gently took the book in hand as she sensed those fairies inside her which represented the ghosts of those intelligence officers who had been assigned to her over the years start to work in absorbing the information in this remarkable volume. Scanning the page before her, she gaped. "Hey, Suzue! Elgin was the one who rescued your crew," she reported. "Not to mention Sumiko's, Chitose's and Akiyama Tokina's crew, too!" She pointed at the detail there.

"Eh?! She rescued Tokina-chan's crew?!"

Akatsuki nearly teleported over to gape in wide-eyed awe at the image Jersey was pointing at, which showed a charging super-battleship with three large funnels firing half her main weapons at a hulking creature about the size of Godzilla in the 2014 American film, said image said to have been taken by a nimmib member of Massachusetts' ship's company with a hidden magical camera. As those four 1.7 tonne shells crossed the forty-two kilometre distance between the Canadian battleship and her target, Jersey nodded. "I remember that," she whispered. "Before that memory-masking thing she pumped out got the admiral and his staff, Admiral Halsey said that was the best damned shooting he had ever seen. Look at it, girls..."

By then, the other destroyers who had come to Hogwarts were staring at the moving picture of Lady Elgin destroying the monster which then had been racing in a roughly northerly directly. Noting the tactical map that was on the opposite page, Zuikaku could only cringe; that thing had been heading directly towards her sinking hull at the time this shot had been taken. When the picture showed the four 18 inch shells hitting the centre of the mass to make the creature literally explode in a violent flash of supercharged mesonium, the girls of Taffy Three all whooped. "YEAH! She smoked that sucker!" Johnson howled before she high-fived Hoel and Heermann before she turned and high-fived Fubuki, Mutsuki and Yūdachi.

Akatsuki nodded. "A true elephant...! A true elegant lady always sees to it that people she seeks to protect are protected!"

"Khoroshó," Hibiki breathed out, nodding in approval. "What is her human name?"

"She's the only one that was adopted by the Harlan Clan of Tadoussac," Hermione answered with a delighted smile. "Elaine Sarah Harlan. She's a full captain in the Royal Canadian Navy Magical Service. The name 'Lady Elgin' is short for 'Lady of Elginmoor'. That's the traditional home of the Canadian branch of the Clan Twelvetrees in Elgin County on Lake Erie. She was directly named after the elder Admiral Harlan's mother, Lady Elaine Harlan, _née_ Twelvetrees. Her own mother was Dorcas Twelvetrees; it was she who was caught in that incident in 1790 that saw Rappaport's Law passed in America."

"Well, that's a very befitting name," Warspite mused from nearby.

"Desu!" Kongō declared with a nod from nearby. "What about you, Patricia?"

Chennalton blinked before she looked over; she had been helping several of the second-year girls with their homework. "My namesake is Professor Peter Richard Chennalton. He was a transfiguration master..." She then smirked. "From _**Dallas**_." As the Americans all gaped in shocked disbelief at her, the second of the Argo-class battleships winked at them. "As the United States of America was not at war at the time either in the normal world or the magical world, he was assigned by the Department of Magic as a neutral observer aboard my sistership during her first sea deployment: The Rhine Exercise operation in 1941." She then gazed at Hood and Bismarck, who both paled on hearing that phrase.

"What happened, Patricia-san?" Shōkaku asked.

"After Luisa here was scuttled, one of those leviathans showed up, ready to sweep in right then and there and consume the souls of the people who were left behind when those ships that were left behind by Admiral Tovey to pick up the survivors scattered on hearing of potential U-boats in the area," Chennalton stated. As Bismarck cringed at the very thought of her brave crew falling victim to those monsters, the Canadian battleship added, "Dorothy's captain sailed her right between that thing and where Luise went down, then at point-blank range, fired all her Mark 7s into the thing to destroy it. But something happened in 'Y' turret that caused the gas vents to jam, which threatened to kill the gun crew inside. The professor apparated into the turret to get them out, but thanks to a combination of magical exhaustion and inhaling the gasses..."

Here, she lowered her eyes. "Holy shit...!" Johnston hissed.

Heads bowed low in silent mourning over what had happened. "Was he properly decorated for that, at least?" Hood then demanded. "An Order of Merlin at the very least! Even if America was neutral at the time...!"

"The George Cross," Chennalton said. "He was also made a Companion of the Order of Merlin of Canada and was awarded the Orden Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds. After he found out what happened, President Roosevelt used his executive powers to bestow the Magical Cross of the United States of America on the professor in 1942."

"A real Gryffindor," Percy mused. "Where did he teach, my lady? Ilvermorny?"

"No, Mister Weasley. He taught at Seven Hills; it's in Virginia. This was still when that school was also a 'basic' magical school; it didn't upgrade to a 'finishing school' until after the war ended, as did Salem."

"But you were the real memorial," Enterprise noted.

"An understandable one, too," Zuikaku mused.

Nods all around. "What were you supposed to be named?" Jersey then asked.

"'Odyssey'," Chennalton answered. "Papa's a fan of Homer's works."

"Both good names," Warspite noted. "What of Erinsville? That name confuses me."

Here, Chennalton smirked. "Be warned of this, Charlene: If you ever make a joke about Erin's name, she will literally show you what a Sectumsempra curse fired through the wand of a magical super-battleship can do to a shipgirl," she said as she held up a warning finger. "'Erinsville' is a corruption of the phrase 'Erin's Villa'. It's the main tavern in the magical quarter of Tadoussac. Her human name, Erin Fingal, was taken from the owner of the tavern at the time Erinsville was built."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Wait...!" Hood hissed. "She was named after a bloody PUB?!"

"There's a reason for it, Commander Hood."

That was Hermione. "What is that, Miss Granger?" Warspite asked.

Taking the book from Jersey, the dentist's daughter flipped the pages to near the start of the text, then she cleared her throat...

* * *

 _ **Sasebo, the old gymnasium of Kōkai Junior High School, an hour later (local time: Monday 22 May, Breakfast)...**_

"Oh...it's morning..."

Grunting, Jane Richardson stretched herself before she sat up on the cot; Moroboshi Ataru and Moroboshi Negako had several of them set on the old stage for people to sleep on in case they needed to stay near the summoning pool. Looking around the darkened space — there was enough light shining through the windows near the tops of the side walls overlooking the pool to let her see — the daughter of the widowed leader of American naval forces in Japan nodded before she got off the cot, then walked over to where the light controls were, turning on the overheads. That was enough to awaken the second of the Sendai-class light cruisers, who had slept on her own cot nearby. "Oi! Junko-mama! Wake up!" Jane called out.

Grunting, Jintsū slowly lifted herself off as her internal systems came on line. "Is it morning already?" the light cruiser who was the effective second wife to John Richardson wondered as she stood up, then moved to dress. "Turn on some music, Jane," she then bade the young elementary school student and honorary ensign of the United States Navy. "I know Ataru-kun acquired a pretty eclectic taste in songs after his sojourn on Noukiios and helping with the Avalonians."

"Sure!" Jane chirruped as she walked over to gaze on the beautiful stereo suite that the Moroboshi siblings had set up near where the lectern had been. Scanning iTunes there, she then smiled. "Is Hans Zimmer okay, Mama?"

"Perfect! He's a wonderful composer! I'll get breakfast going and call your father and Chiyoko to tell them where you are."

"Okay!"

As the cruiser headed off to the old principal's office to make a call over to the Richardson residence overlooking the western part of town, Jane tapped controls to get iTunes going. She smiled as a rolling medley echoed over the speakers, instantly recognizing one of the songs from the 2001 Ben Affleck movie _Pearl Harbour_ , which was constantly ridiculed by both Japanese and American shipgirls alike for its all-too-many inconsistencies. Rocking her head as the beautiful notes of that song echoed around her while she closed her eyes to enjoy the sound, Jane didn't see energy stirring over the summoning pool...

* * *

 **Somewhere...**

 _She could never forget that awful Sunday morning._

 _The helplessness she felt, being stuck between a sinking West Virginia to her port, a shattered and burning Arizona astern and an equally helpless Maryland inboard of a capsized Oklahoma ahead of her. Her crew fought valiantly to drive off the waves of fighters and bombers and she herself hadn't received much in the way of damage, but it simply hadn't been enough..._

 _Not enough..._

 _Still, the sleeping giant that was isolationist post-Great War America had been woken by the attack on Pearl Harbour. Once repaired at Puget Sound, she had been given new search radar and an upgraded anti-aircraft suite in hopes of going forth to seek vengeance against the now-hated foe...before she was sent back to Washington, denied the right of just vengeance thanks to her slow speed, which wasn't enough to screen the few carriers America had left against attacks._

 _Her later upgrade turned her into something that made her seem akin to the new South Dakota-class battleships having recently come into commission by the time she emerged from Puget Sound in mid-1943. A compact superstructure, better fire control and a virtual hornet's nest of anti-aircraft armament which would allow her to defend herself and anyone close to her from air attacks, especially from the horrid tactics that earned the feared name "kamikaze" among American sailors._

 _She did get justice for the loss of Utah, Arizona and Oklahoma in the attack on Pearl Harbour at Surigao Strait during Leyte Gulf, forming the battle line that eventually sank Fusō and Yamashiro. Thinking of that battle, she then remembered the strange dark grey warship with the British White Ensign, the blue ensign of the Dominion of Canada and a black British ensign with a strange insignia in the fly racing in during the middle of the night to destroy a reptilian-like creature that made King Kong look quite small and tame in comparison. A warship as physically long as an Iowa-class but appearing to displace almost twice the mass, bristling with four quad-gun turrets using Mark 7 16-inch rifles, which had been fired at near point-blank range at the creature, destroying it before it could move to ravage the wreckage of Fusō and Yamashiro for whatever reason drove its fancy. A warship bearing the white pendant_ _ **08**_ _on her hull, one none of her crew could recognize..._

 _Save for several non-magical magic-borns — "nimmibs" to borrow the term that had been imported from Canada — who didn't get their minds obliviated of the image of such an incredible ship...yet who knew her name and purpose._

 _His Majesty's Canadian Ship_ Argo _._

 _One of eight vessels purpose-built by the magicals of the Dominion to protect normal sailors from such dark, horrid creatures._

 _Just as the War Hawks gladly came from Canada to protect all Americans from the Übermenschen Group, so did Argo come to protect American sailors from monsters that seemed to surge straight up from the darkest pit of ancient legends._

 _Knowing deep in her then-awakening heart that Argo and her elder sisters in the First Canadian Battleship Squadron were watching everyone's backs as they continued the good fight, she served, usually acting as mobile artillery support for the brave marines and soldiers who splashed ashore to take down outpost after outpost of Japan until the war finally ended in nuclear hellfire on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, unleashed by the Army Air Force to prevent a waterfall of blood being shed if Operation: Dynamo had to be carried out and the Japanese Home Islands invaded. Satisfied that justice had been done and mercy shown to those who had deserved it the most, she had been put in mothballs, kept in ready reserve until the march of technology made her truly obsolete, which condemned her to the breakers even if certain artifacts were preserved in her home state..._

 _Yet..._

 _There it was again._

 _That beautiful medley..._

 _She often heard it projected into This Place from what seemed to be an abandoned school in the Japanese naval town of Sasebo on Kyūshū near Nagasaki, played on many occasions by someone who was not a native of that town, yet currently lived there. Since there were no words to it, she hadn't learned the song's name or its meaning, yet the haunting, rolling mixture of pianos, string instruments and horns tugged deep in her heart, making her want to go towards it..._

 _Yet..._

 _Wait..._

 _What...?_

 _No...!_

 _No!_

 _NO!_

 _Over the echo of that haunting song, the screams of thousands of brave sailors from many nations thundered through This Place, making the soul of the battleship named after the sixteenth state of the Union — one of eleven that tried to form a confederacy a half-century before her launch at the New York Naval Shipyard in 1915 — cringe in horror. Screams of helpless outrage as creatures that seemed born of anger, hate and fury rose from the deep to sweep humanity away from the seas, claiming it as their own domain and forcing mankind — especially on island nations like Japan and Britain — on the defensive._

 _As she felt a body form around her soul, flooded with crystals that she somehow recognized as the same type of material that had composed the famous Power Jewel welded by the one living non-American awarded the Medal of Honour for saving the lives of the President and many of Congress in the Battle of Washington in 1943 against the Übermenschen, she perked as the echoing words of one such sailor serving on a submarine based out of King's Bay in Georgia thundered through her mind..._

 _«_ _ **...from U.S.S.**_ **Tennessee** _ **. Hull breached in the missile compartment...we're trying to surface...unable to evade...**_ _»_

 _Silence._

 _Terrible, cold silence._

 _The silence of Death._

 _Her own modern namesake..._

 _Lost..._

 _No..._

 _No!_

 _NO!_

 _As a typhoon of righteous fury once more flooded the battleship's soul, she surged forth as the beautiful song that had tugged at her very human heart came to an end and a more martial tune began to play, pushing her onward to her new duty._

 _She had been reborn once to avenge Pearl Harbour..._

 _With God's grace and the power of the Atom of True Life..._

 _She will be reborn AGAIN!_

* * *

 _ **Sasebo...**_

"You stayed here last night?"

Jane blushed as an amused Mutsu gave her a knowing look. "After the Lions, the Sekihō sisters and the Ōmi twins came here, Ataru asked me to keep watch on things while he and Kanami took everyone to Scotland to see Harry," she confessed before nodding thanks as Jintsū handed her a cup of orange juice. After taking a moment to sip the welcome drink, she then waved to the doorway that led off the stage. "Otsune and Minako went to sleep in one of the old classrooms..."

"Ohayō gozaimasu, Chiyoko-san! Junko-san! Jane-chan!"

Both the battleship and the light cruiser turned as two girls the same physical size as any of the normal Yamato-class shipgirls walked in. Both were dressed in the traditional robes many of the older battleships and carriers wore as sea uniforms, marking their namesake provinces as being part of the old Tōsandō circuit of territories as seen from the ancient and now current imperial capital of Kyōto. Both were, of course, quite tall, busty and muscular to mark what they could have been and had been effectively re-imaged as by local fans of the kantai musume. The first seemed to appear like a ninja of sorts, which was understandable; her namesake province was the home territory of the famous stealth warriors of Kōka, whose current grandmaster Nagase Kaede was a former student of Negi Springfield's at Mahora. Looking at Ōmi, Mutsu could only smirk on noting how similar she was to that particular shinobi; she currently projected that "serene silent warrior" look Kaede often used with even her closest friends. Beside her, Mino proudly bore the mon of the Nikaidō Clan of Gifu, who had lived in her namesake province. She had the demeanour of a true samurai in the same vein as Kaga and Yonaga. She even had come back bearing a proper daishō; noting that, Mutsu instantly realized that the seventh carrier of Operation Z would no doubt gladly take the younger of the Ōmi-class super-battleships as her primary escort when she went on missions in the future. Befitting her role as a modern shipgirl ninja, the fudge-haired, dark-eyed Ōmi had a shinobigatana strapped to her back and an arsenal of other weapons stashed all over her body; _Negako is definitely going to like training her_ , Mutsu mused.

"'Morning, Otsune! Minako!" Jane called back with a cheery smile.

"Did you get something to eat?" Mutsu asked.

"We were able to replenish ourselves to a standby level in case Teitoku needs us on the seas right away, Chiyoko-dono," Mino stated with proper gravity as she bowed her head in respect to the older battleship. "It was an American restaurant at the Naval District, McDonald's." As Jane immediately cringed, the raven-haired battleship with the cool grey eyes and the severe-looking face that wasn't too different from Kaga's added, "They were more than pleased to help us prepare."

"You sure the grease won't hurt you?" Jane warily asked. She didn't mind the food of that particular restaurant at times, but she couldn't eat it all the time given how much fatty stuff was in what they served and how much they loved to fry things.

"We actually need the grease, Jane-chan," Ōmi said as Mino politely covered her mouth to hide her own smile. "After all, we literally just got built. All our systems are brand new and need to be worked in properly before we can fight."

"Not to mention other things," Mino coyly added.

"Oh, yes!" Ōmi purred. "I'm sure that when Ataru-kun comes to properly appreciate all our virtues, he'll be pleased to take us and make us his, just like he did that very pretty Italian battleship he stayed with when he was in Europe."

"He best be married to you before he puts you in the family way, Miss."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

Mutsu's ears perked. "Turbo-electric drive...?!"

Everyone then turned...

...before they gaped on seeing the curvy woman a little taller than Arizona and Pennsylvania now standing on the waters of the summoning pool, who was gazing with concern and curiosity at them. Mutsu was instantly reminded of the famous American model Bettie Page from the 1950s with the newcomer's raven locks cut in the same manner the native of Nashville had worn on her many shoots. Her skin was the colour of coffee-with-milk even if her eyes were a deep sea blue-green. She was dressed in a similar manner as Enterprise did when she was at sea, wearing a sleeveless version of the Navy khaki work dress top with tie over a pair of matching hot pants. Her legs were sheathed in armoured thigh-high stockings draped in Measure 32 camouflage, the proud hull number **43** displayed in white at mid-thigh on both legs. On her left breast over her heart was a three-row "salad bowl" of medals topped with the Navy Unit Commendation, her Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal bearing two silver mullets marking ten service stars and the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation in the middle of the bottom row.

Jane blinked several times, then she smirked. "Um...oops!"

"How...?" Jintsū demanded.

Mutsu blinked before she gazed at the stereo unit. Seeing the display screen there, she flipped through the history of what was played before she stopped, then she giggled. "Oh, my! That certain proves Negako right..."

"I don't understand," Ōmi asked.

The older battleship waved her down, then she moved to stand at the edge of the stage, properly saluting the newcomer. "Battleship Tennessee, I presume," she greeted the namesake of the Volunteer State.

The newcomer returned that salute. "I am she. You're Nagato-class, aren't you?"

"Battleship Mutsu."

"The one that suffered the magazine explosion in 1943?"

That made Mutsu wince. "Same."

Tennessee sighed. "Well, that war ended sometime ago. What year is this?"

"Twenty-seventeen," Jane provided.

That caused the other battleship to gape before she shook her head. "Fifty-eight years after I was struck from the Naval Register and sent to the breakers," she noted before looking down at herself. "Is there a reason I'm back looking like this?"

"You will not like this explanation, Alexandra-dono," Mino warned.

Tennessee blinked. "'Alexandra'?"

"We're all given human names after becoming like this," Mutsu explained. "I'm Yamamoto Chiyoko, soon to be Chiyoko Robertson. My fiancé is the father of my coming children as well as Jane's father. Jintsū here is Hashimoto Junko. Ōmi and Mino here are Itō Otsune and Itō Minako. The name given to you is 'Alexandra Joan Cocke', named in tribute to a native of your namesake state who served in the House of Representatives in Washington as well as the state senate."

The other battleship blinked before a look of outrage flashed across her face; she had seen Mutsu's baby bump. "You're in the family way and you're NOT married?! No offence to young Jane, but where is her father?! I want some words with him!"

Mino winced. "Alexandra-dono, he's our admiral...!"

"That makes it WORSE!" Tennessee shrilled as a battle aura formed around her. "Conduct unbecoming an officer...!"

As the namesake of the Volunteer State began to rant like crazy, Mutsu and Jintsū exchanged looks before they shrugged. «She'll definitely fit in here, Chiyoko-chan!» the cruiser advised by signal lamp as Jane calmly sipped her orange juice.

«Maybe she can calm Maggie-chan down finally,» the battleship noted...

* * *

 _ **Close to Hogwarts, that moment (local time: Midnight)...**_

"They're all asleep?"

"They're getting there," Hayashi Kanami noted as she moved to sit beside Moroboshi Ataru on the stern boarding ramp of the Dynajet they had used to transport the six Lion-class battleships and the five Sekihō-class large fleet carriers to Britain in the wake of the summoning of the six Hessen-class battleships hours before. A special magical train had been ordered up from London Kings Cross to help transport the newly-summoned European warships down from Hogsmeade so the Lions could report right away to Whitehall to commence their own training before the German warships would travel through the Channel Tunnel to France and then on to Berlin to report for training there. Once all was seen as properly secure concerning Nagato's son, Ataru would gladly transport all the Japanese shipgirls and their American friends back to Sasebo so they could get back to their lives and Harry Potter could finish off his freshman year here. "While that 'law' that the idiots in the local magical ministry passed to force little Harry to stay here is still on the books, the chief moron that pushed for its passing won't be an issue anymore. Don't ask me about the politics, but a lot of the people who helped pass it were Volde-moron's lackeys..."

"And if they ultimately lose their magic, they lose whatever influence they have in their rather ass-backward society," he finished for his friend before taking a swig of the bottle of Coke he had brought with him on this trip. "Well, that's too bad for them. They should have realized long ago that the outside world's not going to leave them alone. With the speed technology is catching up to magic and with the presence of metahumans on the planet if the numbers Onē-san gave me concerning the Canadians' specialized warfare unit are true, there's no way in hell that this Volde-moron would have got much anywhere before someone decided to drop a mesonium bomb on his head. No way those horcrux things could've saved him then."

Kanami shook her head before holding out her hand, nodding thanks as the bottle of soda pop was handed over. Taking her own swig, she handed it back. "Akane-chan was hitting on me something awful when we came over here," she admitted.

"It's hard for you, isn't it? Especially since she's a near-perfect look-alike to your ex-fiancée," he noted.

She nodded. "Yeah! Don't want to even think about doing anything with her. I've got enough on my mind about Taeko-chan to worry about getting other lovers. Given how little I got any chance to be close to anyone when I was still Ranma..."

He gazed her way, then he sighed. "You miss being him, don't you?"

"Raised that way for sixteen years plus. Yeah, becoming an Avalonian pretty much guaranteed that I'd stay like this for the rest of my very long life, but I can't go cutesy like that." She snapped her fingers in emphasis. "At least Taeko-chan is trying to understand what I'm going through right now. Then again, given that she got turned from being a warship into becoming a magical bioroid almost like me, she's got enough of her own problems to worry about. Why confuse the issue?"

"True."

"Heard that Roberta-san was asking to be transferred to Japan."

Ataru winced before he sighed. "I have no influence on that, Kanami!"

Both of them laughed. After he had helped liberate the Avalonians a half-year before, Ataru got lonely for home. After things in Europe were declared "safe" with the removal of the last Niphentaxian observers from the Continent having been done by Negako and their new friends from Yiziba, Ataru had gone to Taranto at the head of its like-named gulf where the shipgirls who had once served in the Regia Marina were based to help keep the central Mediterranean Sea clear. There, he had met battleship Roma; to Ataru, the third of the Littorio-class fast battleships and the only one lost in battle was Roberta Ansaldo.

It had been simply love at first sight for the bespectacled shipgirl.

As for Ataru...

"You care for her," Kanami noted.

He gave her a look, then he sighed. "Just like you still care for Akane-san."

The once-female side of Saotome Ranma blinked before she slowly nodded at that particular observation. "At least she's free of being forced into something she really doesn't want deep in her heart. Much that she did care for the other me, she hated having her whole damned life dictated to her like that, especially after a decade of her pimp of a father just disintegrating after losing his wife like he did. Given all the shit Kunō unleashed on her until we got there to take off some of the heat off."

"Despite her always claiming she could fight her own fights."

A bitter laugh escaped her before she shook her head. "Yeah, that too. Well, now that the boom's been dropped, she'll move on to a good university and get on with her life. Doubt she'll be the right sort of material to be a 'special boatswain's mate' like you and me; even if she does care for many things, she still has major issues with her temper." Kanami then blinked. "What about the folks in Tomobiki? Any good candidates among your old classmates there? We need the help."

"Only one I might recommend is Inu Chigaiko," he admitted. "After I dropped out of school, that curse that hit her last Hallowe'en would've faded off and she would have got her friends back. Tsuruya Rumiko's another one even if she's a pure a lesbian as if she had been born on Lesbos itself. Don't want to get her close to some of the more amorous types." As she laughed on hearing that, he shook his head. "None of the others. Shinobu's always had issues with the whole concept of shipgirls. They're a 'perversion' of the proper order of things as she sees it from all her bible studies. Ryūnosuke's still trying to figure out if she's a girl or she'll go ageneder and be effectively asexual when it comes to other people. Thank the gods that whacked-out 'engagement' old man Fujinami wanted to force on her with this cross-dresser 'daughter' of his old classmate fell through thanks to the Abyssals. I really would wonder about what sort of grandkids might result from that."

She gazed at him. "You still miss Shinobu. And Lum, too."

He thought about it, then he slowly nodded. "Just the good things. Shinobu's like Akane-san in a way. You earn her respect, she'll care for you with all the power in her body and soul. Lum has a lot of good points, too. But she just never sat back and thought about living on a planet where the technological and social differences were just too great at times. She never learned to dial it back, which made her really scary to me at times." He then scowled as his left eye seemed to flare with the dark power that had first woken inside his soul on a planet over fifty light-years away from Earth and eleven months in his past. "Until I learned what _**real**_ frightening things are out there, that is," he added with a wry smile.

She nodded...

...then both tensed as the local ki fields seemed to shift slightly. "Incoming," Kanami warned as she stood up, her body tense.

A flash of phoenix fire followed by a cooing song then made her relax even if she turned to look in the direction of the castle...

...just as a smiting brown-haired fast battleship emerged from the teleportation circle formed by what Ataru recognized as Populus, personal familiar to the current Minister of Magic of the Italian Republic, Professor Tullio Cicerone of Frosinone southeast of Rome. In Roma's shuddering hands was a briefcase; a quick glance with his ki sight told Ataru that the third of the Littorio-class battleships had brought her considerable wardrobe — not to mention her own white Huracán sports car, a personal gift to the namesake of the Eternal City from the chief executive officer of Automobili Lamborghini SpA himself — all magically shrunk down for ease of transport when she moved on to Japan. "Buongiorno, Tesoro," he whispered.

Hearing that made Roma perk before she beamed, her dark brown eyes glittering with both a tidal wave of passion and a waterfall of determination to ensure her relationship with him would work out in the face of what he had endured thanks to one petty girl who seemed at times to pay just lip service to the True Faith and an alien monster who acted as if the whole of Earth was her private playground for the year she had tortured a fundamentally decent man in the name of "marriage".

"Mio angelo della notte..."

As a trilling Populus lifted himself off her shoulder, Roma ran over at flank to nearly knock Ataru off his butt with her embrace. At that moment, the low drone of aircraft overhead made Kanami look up before she gazed towards Hogwarts to see two elder fleet carriers of the Kidō Butai heading their way at flank speed, their bows at the ready. " _ **It's okay, guys!**_ " she called out with a touch of ki in her voice, waving to Akagi and Kaga. " _ **Roberta-san just came by to meet up with Ataru!**_ "

Both veterans of Pearl Harbour and Midway slowed down as they held up their flight decks to allow their reconnaissance bombers to land before they approached the multi-environmental cargo aircraft that had been used by Ataru to transport nearly a dozen shipgirls to Scotland from Kyūshū. "What is she doing here, Kanami-san?" Akagi asked after she dispersed her rigging, keeping her voice low so as to not interrupt the passionate embrace between the Italian battleship and her lover.

"Don't ask me, but I think she's coming back with us to Japan," Kanami noted as she nodded at the briefcase Roma had brought with her. "You know Richardson-shōshō is good friends with Bergamini-shōshō." Ammiraglio di Divisione Jacobella Bergamini, a relative of the admiral who died on Roma when she had been sunk by the Luftwaffe in 1943, was COMFANFLOT (Comandante in Capo delle Fanciulle della Flotta), the Marina Militare's equivalent to people such as Gotō Kiichi in Japan and Drake Harlan in Canada. The several Japanese kanmusu who got the chance to help force open the Red Sea and Suez Canal to restore trade links with southern Europe had nothing but the highest praise for the native of Modena near Bologna.

"Sì, I am."

All three turned as Roma pulled gently away from Ataru. The sharp eyes of Kanami, Akagi and Kaga were quick to sense the thin string of drool connecting their lips; no doubt, they realized, if Roma and Ataru had been alone, the clothes would have flown off them both and they would be ravaging each other to the point where the Italian battleship would wind up being pregnant. Gracefully straightening out her armoured skirt, the third of the Littorio-class battleships then gave the two elder aircraft carriers a polite curtsy. "Ammiraglio Bergamini was overjoyed to hear what happened to Chiyoko," she stated as she gazed in amusement at them. "She's always been worried about how little Giovanna would grow up without a mother; she was there when Ammiraglio Richardson lost his wife." As the three shipgirls bowed their eyes in respect to that loss, Roma sighed. "The orders were just cut. Until such time as the future Capitano di Corvetta Richardson can realistically resume her duties as a fighting fanciulle della flotta — if she ever will be able to do that given she's about to become a mother — I'll be assigned as fleet liaison from la Marina Militaire to la Forza di Autodifesa Maritima and la Marina degli Stati Uniti based out of Sasebo."

"And be close to Ataru-san, of course," Kaga stated with a knowing look.

Roma gave her an amused look. "Do you blame me, Kei?"

"Of course not!"

The shipgirls laughed, then Roma gazed at the hovering Populus. "Ringrazio il ministro, amico mio," she called out in Italian, earning her a delighted coo from the phoenix before he teleported back to the Eternal City in a flash of fire.

"Ah! Roma-sempai! What are you doing here?!"

Roma looked over, then she smiled as a small flock of destroyers came racing over to her. "Buongiorno, miei amati piccoli amici!" she called out before Fubuki and Mutsuki nearly knocked her over with their embraces. "Ehi...!"

"Hey, Roberta! What the hell are you doing here, girl?!"

That earned her a laugh as both Iowa and New Jersey jogged over to warmly embrace the namesake of the Eternal City. "Buongiorno! What the devil are you two doing here anyway?!" She then tensed. "Reiko's little one...?"

"Safe and sound, Bobbie," Jersey assured the other battleship. "Turns out this Volde-monkey asshole who's wanted to punch in Harry's dog tags was trying to steal something from a friend of Professor Dumbledore; he actually disguised himself as the defence teacher here this year." As Roma paled — all the Italian shipgirls who visited Yokosuka had nothing but the warmest of thoughts for Harry Potter — the namesake of the Garden State added, "Negako punched his ticket once and for all tonight when she arranged to get the H-class girls and the Lion-class ships summoned using some old magic that was on the grounds by the castle. The Sekihō-class girls and the Super Yamato twins all came along as a bonus today."

"Mio Dio! Is piccolo Harry alright, Katharina?!"

"He's quite fine, Capitano Ansaldo," an aged male voice called out, making all the shipgirls turn as another phoenix fluttered clear of a smiling headmaster. "I thought I sensed Populus come here just now. What brings you to Hogwarts?"

"The only proper reason, Professore Dumbledore," Roma said as Ataru grasped her hand, raising it to give her a courtly kiss.

Seeing that, Albus Dumbledore smiled, his eyes twinkling. "The one true magic above all," he sagely declared...

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, an hour later (local time: Three hours before lunch)...**_

" _ **THREE CHEERS FOR TENNESSEE! HIP-HIP...!**_ "

" _ **HOORAH!**_ "

" _ **HIP-HIP...!**_ "

" _ **HOORAH!**_ "

" _ **HIP-HIP...!**_ "

" _ **HOORAH!**_ "

" _ **TENNESSEE BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI!**_ "

Blushing at such a welcome from both the natives as well as those in what was the modern version of the Navy working uniform, Tennessee smiled before she exchanged salutes with John Richardson, who looked as if he had received a dozen birthday presents all at once when it wasn't his special day. While the lead ship of her class of super-dreadnoughts was still scandalized at the idea of what this man had done to Mutsu, his daughter's childish explanation about how relations between human personnel and emotionally-mature shipgirls ran these days had mollified her somewhat. It was still grossly improper as the man before her was a one-star admiral and the second of the Nagato-class super-dreadnoughts was only a lieutenant commander...and with her current state, there was no disguising such an intimate relationship to the common public.

She just hoped people back home would understand it...

"Permission to come aboard, sir?" she asked.

"Permission granted, Lieutenant Cocke," he bade.

The quartermaster off to one side rang the bell twice as the boatswain's mates all shrilled the still on the call, making people brace themselves. " _ **TENNESSEE, ARRIVING!**_ " the assistant quartermaster then called out over the bullhorn.

Tennessee saluted the flag again as the locals all screamed out their banzai cheers and the American and Japanese service personnel saluted her in turn, many also howling their delight. "Welcome to Fleet Activities Sasebo, Lieutenant," Richardson bade as he waved her to follow him towards the headquarters complex. "We didn't expect you to come in here like this, so this isn't the proper welcome we normally would have for a returning ship-spirit." He gave her a curious look. "How...?"

"Courtesy of a fine composer named Hans Zimmer, who made a song named after my state for some Hollywood fantasy movie, sir," Tennessee stated before she turned to look aft. Other than Mutsu, Jintsū and a grinning Jane, she was alone. "Um, where exactly are the Lieutenants Itō, Commander Yamamoto?" she asked. "They came back to duty not a few hours ago, didn't they? Shouldn't have they been welcomed aboard at the same time I was? Or is the ceremony different for your fleet?"

"We're keeping their return and the return of the Sekihō-class girls a little low key at this time, Lieutenant Cocke," Richardson said. "My effective operational commander here, Rear Admiral Gotō Kiichi, has to brief the government in Kyōto about the return of the lieutenants as well as the younger Lieutenants Ozawa." He knew that Mutsu would have briefed Tennessee about who was what. "I would rather not want to be there when Commander Kobayashi finds out what happened."

That made the namesake of the Volunteer State nod. "Ōyodo. The light cruiser who was the flag of the Combined Fleet once."

"The same," Mutsu stated. "She's the effective chief of logistics for the combined Self-Defence Force/United States Navy fighting formations based here in country. Even if the supply situation has improved much in the last two years thanks to the Canadians punching through convoys like they have due to their different approach to summoning kanmusu, poor Okiku-chan often has panic attacks when it comes to getting larger warships summoned here, even local ones. How she was able to take Yoiko-san's return, I'll never understand. But with Otsune-chan and Minako-chan, not to mention the Sekihō sisters...!"

Tennessee blinked. "'Yoiko'? You mean Yonaga? That Yamato-class conversion that was stuck in Siberia all these years that young Jane spoke of?" She glanced down at the grinning "ensign" that was accompanying them to the office.

"Same one," Richardson advised. "She'll be based here as well. Try not to be too much a bible thumper around her, Lieutenant. She's been known to hack off the heads of enemy installations with her sword if they piss her off enough."

"She's not too bad," Jane added. "Miss Yoiko's really, really, really formal-like. And she really resented how we treated people in Japan before the war because of that whole 'we white, we better than you' attitude people had back then!"

That made the just-summoned standard battleship blink before she chuckled. "Jane, did you not notice my skin colour?" she asked. As Jane gave her a curious look, Tennessee stopped to wink. "In the terms used before the Late Unpleasantness, I'm a mulatto. Back before that dreadful time, the chances were awfully good that I'd be traded around as a SLAVE!" As Jane gaped in horror at her, the battleship added, "Believe me, I would sympathize with the captain's opinions in that regard."

The others stared at her, then Mutsu chuckled. "I was right."

"How so?" Richardson asked.

"She'll fit PERFECTLY here, John!"

Tennessee perked, then she sighed. "Speaking of which, I will like to lodge my formal protest against you concerning your relationship with Commander Yamamoto, Admiral," she said as she fixed the Virginia native with a glare. As Mutsu gaped, the namesake of the Volunteer State added, "Leaving her in the family way before our shipmates without taking her formally as your wife is NOT the example you should be presenting to your subordinates. Not to mention treating Commander Hashimoto and who knows how many others like this as well?! What sort of example are you making to your daughter, sir?"

He gazed at her, then he chuckled, shaking his head in amazement. "That, I have to confess, is a lot nicer rebuke that I've received from either Lieutenant Penn or Lieutenant Owings," he then stated, which made Tennessee's eyebrow arch. "I accept that by proper military standards, what I'm doing with Chiyoko and Junko is very wrong, Alexandra. But you shipgirls have different psychological needs than most normal people your emotional age do, especially if they're in uniform. While there are certain lines that are not crossed, the relationship I have with Chiyoko is seen as acceptable by both the President and the Secretary of Defence, to say anything of His Majesty the Heavenly Sovereign and His Excellency the Prime Minister here in Japan. Besides, given how much death has been unleashed by the enemy over the last ten years, the idea of creating new life — and showing shipgirls they CAN have normal lives when the shooting's over with — is just as vital as fighting."

Hearing that, Tennessee blinked, then she sighed. "I still feel it's improper."

"Would you like to be sent stateside...?"

" _ **NO!**_ "

That caused the others to jolt as a look of shamed horror crossed Tennessee's face. Seeing that, Richardson sighed. "Task Force One. Forgot about that...!" he hissed. "Lieutenant Cocke, I meant no insult towards your bravery and your determination to do your duties. Please accept my apology." He bowed his head formally to the battleship, which made her gape.

After a moment, Tennessee sighed. "Accepted, sir. I may not have the speed of those young kids that were coming down the slipways when I was trapped beside WeeVee and getting the burning oil on my stern because of what happened to Ari when the Japanese came to visit, but I am more than capable of fighting the enemy. Put them before my guns and I will sink them."

"You'll get your chance," he said with a determined nod. "But first and foremost, you have to understand what the enemy's all about. For that, we need to get to the briefing room so you can see this all for yourself."

Seeing the deeply-etched horror burning in his eyes, she nodded. "Aye-aye, sir..."

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Hēichá** — Fermented tea; **Fregattenkapitän** — Frigate Captain, the German Navy rank title for a commander (NATO rank code OF-4); **MI5** — Short for **Military Intelligence, Section 5** , the original name given to the **Security Service** which serves as the United Kingdom's counterintelligence and special security agency; **Mesonium Noir Revelio** — Reveal ebony mesonium; **Spemát** — Short for **Speciál'nye Mágicheskie Trudovój Láger'** ("Special Magical Labour Camp"); **Regia Marina** — Royal Navy; **SpA** — Short for **Società per Azioni** (literally "company limited by shares"), a form of business corporation in Italy which is a limited liability entity; **Buongiorno** — Good morning; **Tesoro** — Treasure; **Mio angelo della notte** — My dark angel; **Ammiraglio di Divisione** — Division Admiral, the Italian Navy rank title for a rear admiral (NATO rank code OF-7); **Comandante in Capo delle Fanciulle della Flotta** — Commander in Chief of Fleet Maidens (short-formed **COMFANFLOT** ); **Marina Militare** — Italian Navy (literally "military navy"), which in the universe of this story is shortened to **MM** to serve as a ship prefix for Italian warships or shipgirls; **Capitano di Corvetta** — Corvette Captain, the Italian Navy rank title for a lieutenant commander (NATO rank code OF-3); **Forza di Autodifesa Maritima** — Maritime Self-Defence Force; **Marina degli Stati Uniti** — United States Navy; **Ringrazio il ministro, amico mio** — With thanks to the minister, my friend; **Miei amati piccoli amici** — My beautiful little friends; **Ehi!** — Hey!; **Piccolo** — Little; **HMCA** — Short for **Her Majesty's Canadian Airship** , rendered in French as **ACSM** ( **Aéronef Canadien de Sa Majesté** ).

A gracious nod to both _**Sasahara17**_ and _**Siirakannu**_ for their creation of kanmusu versions of the **Orion-class super-dreadnoughts** ( **Her Majesty's Ships** _ **Orion**_ , _**Monarch**_ , _**Thunderer**_ and _**Conqueror**_ ). To see the pictures, just go to Danbooru and search for "HMS Orion (Siirakannu)". The back story of those four is the same as introduced in Sasahara17's snippets included in Harry Leferts' collection at SpaceBattles; he didn't put up those snippets within the collection at Sufficient Velocity. Another gracious nod to _**Unko2000**_ at the Deviant Art website for the inspiration of the shipgirl version of **United States Ship** _ **Tennessee**_. Just search for "USS Tennessee KanColle" and you'll find what I saw.

Canada's primary magic-only award is the **Order of Merlin of Canada** (in French, **l'Ordre de Merlin du Canada** ). Split into three levels like the original British award, members of the Canadian order are ranked from highest to lowest this way:

 **Companion of the Order of Merlin of Canada** / **Compagnon de l'Ordre de Merlin du Canada** ( **CMC** )  
 **Officer of the Order of Merlin of Canada** / **Officier de l'Ordre de Merlin du Canada** ( **OMC** )  
 **Member of the Order of Merlin of Canada** / **Membre de l'Ordre de Merlin du Canada** ( **MMC** )

In the mixed normal/magical order of precedence, the three levels of the Canadian Order of Merlin rank one step below the corresponding level of the Order of Canada, the Dominion's highest national order of merit.

In the universe of my stories, the American versions of the Order of Merlin are titled and ranked as follows (with both British and Canadian Order of Merlin post-nominal letters to show the level of grade):

MO1/CMC — **Magical Cross of the United States of America  
** MO2/OMC — **Magical Star of the United States of America  
** MO3/MMC — **Magical Medal of the United States of America**

Noted that I use "MO" for the Order of Merlin as "OM" serve as the post-nominal letters for the **Order of Merit** , the Crown's highest personally-gifted award of honour and merit for any citizen of the Commonwealth.

The term **Tōsandō** is a geographical name indicating a chain of ancient Japanese provinces that led east and north from Kyōto along the central mountain spine of Honshū all the way up to the northern tip of the main island. The name itself means "Eastern Mountain Circuit" and it composed a total of nine provinces; the name was also applied to the several primary roads that connected the capitals of these provinces to the ancient Imperial capital of Japan.

The **Kōka Clan** are often called "Koga" by mistake. And yes, **Nagase Kaede** from _Mahō Sensei Negima_ is one of them.

And the shipgirls (and airship girls) mentioned here:

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **HMCS Sunbeam** — Stacey Lynn Keel  
 **HMCS Sundown** — Darlene Ann Saint Germain  
 **HMCS Argo** — Dorothy Joan Holland  
 **HMCA Apollo** — Gloria Janet Fitch  
 **HMCA Boadicea** — Tricia Edwina Long Dream  
 **HMCA Cassiopeia** — Lucy Allaine Saint-Pierre  
 **HMCA Defender** — Ximena Valentina Fernando y Sebastian  
 **HMCA Eclipse** — Wynter Brenda O'Brien  
 **HMCA Forester** — Lana Stephanie Kingsbridge

 _ **ITALY  
**_ **MM Roma** — Roberta Ansaldo

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Zuihō** — Takasaki Sumiko  
 **THG Chitose** — Seigō Chitose  
 **THG Akizuki** — Akiyama Tokina  
 **THG Fusō** — Nishimura Fujiko  
 **THG Yamashiro** — Nishimura Yaeko

 _ **UNITED KINGDOM  
**_ **HMS Orion** — Katharine Maria Dreyer  
 **HMS Monarch** — Henriette Nicola Poincaré  
 **HMS Conqueror (1911)** — Helen Horatia Danielle Tothill  
 **HMS Thunderer (1911)** — Edith Christiana Fergusson

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Massachusetts** — Rose Barbara Standish  
 **USS Tennessee** — Alexandra Joan Cocke  
 **USS Oklahoma** — Dorothy Rhoda Rowland  
 **USS Maryland** — Anne Mary Calvert  
 **USS Utah** — Miriam Abigail Young

Of course, given that they're cats in this story, the blimps of **Airship Patrol Squadron 14** ( **ZP-14** ) were not named by Ataru or Negako. However, in the spirit of humanizing everything, the human support crew would have given them names.


	7. Yonaga Deploys to Nerima

**_DISCLAIMER:_** ** _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_** **Copyright Act** ** _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki Senior High School, Monday 22 May, two hours before lunch...**_

"...do such a thing? He'll have detention for the rest of his LIFE...!"

Hearing that moaning lament from the balding elderly principal of her school, Marubeya Momoe found herself scowling as she tried not to snap at the old fool for complaining about something that should have been dealt with months ago. Sensing the tomboyish raven-haired girl with the brown eyes about to lose it with the Principal, Momoe's best friend Gekasawa Kumiko smirked as she reached down to gently grasp the other woman's hand. "Relax, Momoe-chan," the woman once voted the prettiest girl in the infamous "class of failure" whispered as her own dark eyes sparkled with mirth. "As soon as the PTA finally wakes up to the fact that this idiot isn't in any sort of real charge over this place, he's gone. With his tenure, Onsen-sensei will be put in as principal soon enough. Once he's in place, all the idiots will be made to behave themselves finally."

Hearing that made Momoe blink before she sighed as they moved to climb up the stairs to the second floor. "We dreamed for so long to see Lum and Ataru-kun tossed out of this place once and for all...and the place just went to the dogs! What the hell's the matter with people these days? Don't they care about that Oni's 'most faithful' and what they tried to pull here?"

Kumiko snorted as she gently tossed her long, flowing black hair around to stretch her neck. "The boys don't. Even now, they can't see how much of a threat Lum was to people here on Earth. Megane whipped them up so badly when he started the bitch's 'stormtroopers' a year ago that they can't think of something else to focus on now. Not even the kanmusu." She then giggled. "And given how strong some of those girls are said to be, it's no wonder they're having panic attacks."

"Oh?"

"You want to face the likes of Yonaga-sama and try to convince her to let Ataru-kun go so he could go back to Lum?"

Momoe winced. "No thanks. I like my head to stay on my neck, please!"

"Must you talk about those things?"

Both girls stopped, then they gazed on Moroboshi Ataru's former girlfriend, who had stepped out of Class 2-4 to get some fresh air. The muffled shouts of several boys echoed from beyond the closed doors of the classroom. No doubt, Aisuru Satoshi — even after nearly being crippled by Taihō the previous afternoon — was trying to "rally the troops" to find some way to make the government force their former classmate back to Tomobiki as the first step to restoring Redet Lum back to Earth again and return things to "normal". Given what Ataru and his adopted sister Moroboshi Negako had done to literally cut Earth off from any contact from the Urusians or their allies — the girls of Class 2-4 had been briefed on that thanks to private letters from Ataru which had also contained apologies for his behaviour around them in the past — the chances of Lum or any of her friends coming back to restart the "circus" that had haunted people's lives in Tomobiki for a year were well to the left of "nil".

"Shinobu-chan, let it go!" Kumiko breathed out, shaking her head in pity at the other girl, who still seemed incapable of finally putting her relationship with Ataru in its place within her heart. "You walked away from Ataru-kun once and for all when Mendō-san joined us. You've no right to judge him for anything anymore." As Miyake Shinobu stiffened on hearing that criticism from what she once viewed as friend and ally when it came to dealing with the craziness that haunted Tomobiki for so long, Kumiko added, "Given what we've seen of Ataru-kun's idiot mother these days, I can't blame him for wanting to get away from this place. You've no right to demand he just come back here to put up to that slut's abuse!" Ignoring Shinobu's squawk of outrage at that insult being applied to Moroboshi Kinshō, Kumiko shook her head. "You're just upset at the fact that Ataru-kun hid so much from you all these years, especially given what he did for the kanmusu as a whole."

"And that he's dating Roma-san these days," Momoe added, which made Shinobu's face flush red as that comment struck home. "Given how much of a bad cook Lum was reported to be, I can't blame him for wanting to date someone like her."

"Considering how much the kanmusu of Yokosuka loved it when she stayed with them for a while, helping out with Hōshō-sensei's restaurant like she did, he was wise to pursue her," Kumiko added. "At least THAT didn't change about Ataru-kun."

She giggled as she walked into the classroom, ignoring Shinobu's sputtered protest. Momoe followed her inside, quickly noting a small group of boys led by Megane crowded around Mendō Shūtarō's desk. Seeing the calm serenity the scion of Japan's richest student now projected to his peers, both Momoe and Kumiko could only smile in delight. With Lum gone, the chances were better than good that one of the girls of Class 2-4 would be able to properly win Shūtarō's heart; given how much of an androphobic menace his "fiancée" Mizunokōji Asuka was, the chances of that marriage going through were simply next to nil. And given Shinobu's recent ranting against the kanmusu — whom she saw as no different than the Abyssals, which was about the most _**stupid**_ thing one could say these days about the beautiful sea kami who came back in Japan's darkest hour to save the nation and humanity — the chances of her getting back together with Shūtarō were also pretty much next to nil.

"They'll lose steam soon enough," a familiar voice noted from nearby, making both girls look over. "The news of Taihō-sama's attack on them yesterday after they were ordered out of the Nekohanten is making the rounds."

Momoe and Kumiko glanced at their class' only publicly-admitted homosexual member, Tsuruya Rumiko. The granddaughter of the local dietman and one of the most intelligent students in Metro Tōkyō, she was a rather plain-looking girl with bobcut black hair and dark brown eyes behind reading glasses. She had been part of Shūtarō's "secret peer guidance committee" during the "food fight" the previous summer shortly after the scion of Japan's richest family joined them, but dropped out when she decided she didn't want to put up to the would-be perversions of some of the people who had joined the group as a way of lording it over their peers. She was also the primary source of information when it came to the kanmusu in the class; even during the time that weird news blackout had been cloaked over Tomobiki, she could relay choice information when asked.

Right now, Rumiko was scanning something on her iPad. "So what else is new?" Kumiko asked as she and Momoe sat nearby. Ever since Lum and Ataru left, the seating arrangement had changed, with the boys gravitating to one side and the girls to the other; Shūtarō pretty much stayed where he had been all along. Both Lum's and Ataru's old desks were empty at this time. A bouquet of flowers sitting on the desk once used by the Oni warlord's daughter; that had been a mark of mourning from all the boys who still lamented her expulsion from Earth two days ago. Of course, nothing marked Ataru's desk even if Rumiko's next door neighbour in her row, Inu Chigaiko, often wished she had gone with him down to Sasebo. Of course, given what happened to the former basketball team star forward — she had quit the team the day after all of Class 2-4 had been brought back to Earth by the ancient Noukiite sky dragon Nengmek'i — after a certain Hallowe'en party some months before...

"Oh, Roberta-san just announced that she's back together with Ataru-kun. They're in Scotland, looking in on Reiko-san's son," Rumiko stated as her eyes twinkled. Those in Class 2-4 who were interested in the kanmusu now knew of Ataru's move to humanize them by giving them human names. "Nothing lewd, but the stories of what he was doing in Italy while he was waiting for his younger self to be taken to Okusei are getting out over Facebook and Shipgirl Central." That latter service was a free chat started by Facebook's founders to serve as the unclassified central information nexus for all shipgirls and their friends worldwide. As he was a "special boatswain's mate" to both Yonaga and Roma, Moroboshi Ataru was a member. Given he was currently moving to get Rumiko and Chigaiko also involved with the shipgirls — a fact that none of the boys, not even Shūtarō, knew of — the class' most intelligent student was also a member of SGC, as was her classmate. "Quite an interesting set of tales, especially given what Ataru-kun did when he returned the medals he was given for defeating Lum a year ago."

The other girls snorted. "'He stole my money'," Kumiko whined in a good imitation of Moroboshi Kinshō's voice. That had been a frequent complaint from Ataru's mother ever since the news of his returning the medals and decorations — including all the monetary awards he got for his actions a year ago — had got out to the general public a week ago. Whatever sympathy people in Tomobiki had once felt for the likes of Kinshō had vanished when that went public. "Gods! Why didn't we pick up on that shit?! We've known Ataru-kun for HOW long?! To believe he had to put up to all that from the idiot...!"

"We didn't want to think it was as bad as what Harry-chan went through with his relatives," Rumiko noted. "Understandable. Given how much people have suffered over the years, the idea of parents doing _**that**_ to their children..."

The other girls nodded. Due to the alien presence in Tomobiki, the whole town had been granted a blanket exception to the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy since there had been considerable magical incidents — including a visit to the school by beings reported to be the Great Kami of Shintō Themselves at the fall school festival! — that started there shortly after Lum moved into town. Such had yet to be rescinded. Given the rumours running over the Internet concerning all the obvious magical incidents that had come to light since the Abyssals began to openly act against all of humanity, the chances were awfully good that the leaders of the Eight Imperial Magical Commanderies — that was the name given to the directors of the eight regional Magical Associations which served as leadership council for those blessed with that gift in lieu of a single Mahō-Shōgun — wouldn't bother to do anything to the people who suffered so long for a year because of aliens who had no sense of self-control. "What about Harry-chan?" Momoe asked. "He's in his freshman year at...! What was that place called?"

"Hogwarts," Rumiko answered. "Our own Dejima School in Nagasaki was modelled after it. One of the oldest wand-magical schools in the world and one of those that won international recognition by the ICW in Geneva." She then snorted. "Then again, they still list Mahōtokoro as an 'active' school. Yomigawa-gensui ordered it closed down in 1930 and the Abyssals wrecked the place six years ago when they stepped up attacks on all known magical villages." She winked at her friends.

"Take it with a massive grain of salt, you mean," Kumiko noted.

"Hai..."

A shocked scream then echoed from the hallway. "Shinobu-san!" Fujinami Ryūnosuke screamed out as people surged for the closed doors to the classroom to look out into the hallway and see what had just happened.

One glance was good enough.

"Holy shit...!" Mifune Hideyuki, one of the boys who was slowly gravitating to kanmusu fandom even if he was still seen as an affiliate member of Lum's Stormtroopers, croaked out in disbelief on seeing who was standing there.

"So who exactly is this girl, Ikuko?"

"No doubt Ataru-kun's would-be paramour, Hoshiko. Pay her no mind."

Jaws dropped. "Ise-sama...Hyūga-sama...!" Shūtarō gasped in awe.

Hearing their ship names called out, the two aviation battleships known to Moroboshi Ataru and other close friends as Kawasaki Ikuko (Ise) and Kawasaki Hoshiko (Hyūga) both perked before they gazed over. Like they always did unless they wanted to spend time incognito, the two shipgirls born of Japan's third generation of dreadnoughts wore their normal modified miko clothing, with pleated brown skirts in lieu of hakama trousers, their beautiful daishō lashed to their left hips. Of course, they had left their sea boots at the main entrance, wearing uwabaki instead. Escorting them was a smiling Onsen Mark, the current vice-principal and homeroom teacher for Class 2-4. "I assume she'll be here, Onsen-sensei?" Ise asked.

"Hai, Ise-sama, she's here," Onsen stated, then he gazed at the gathered students before he cleared his throat, bracing himself to attention. "Tsuruya-kun, come forth. You've been requested to meet our honoured guests."

"Hai, Sensei!"

People parted as Rumiko walked over to join them, then she gaped on seeing the two modified super-dreadnoughts there. Noting the shared looks of delight on both their faces, she then looked at Onsen. "Um...what's going on, Sensei?"

Ise cleared her throat. "Sumimasen, Rumiko-san. Your request to serve as special boatswain's mate for members of the Combined Shipgirl Fleet of the State of Japan and our honoured allies was just approved by Admiral Gotō," she stated, making many of the boys all gasp in shocked disbelief at that announcement. "You've been officially transferred to private study as of today. We're here to help transport you down to the Naval District at Yokosuka so you can assume your duties."

People gaped at this, then the boys gave Shūtarō hopeful looks, they clearly believing that his supposed influence on affairs of government could be brought to play to put a stop to this. Noting that, the girls tried not to roll their eyes at such a pathetic ploy. Given the boys' blinding obsession towards getting Lum back to town so they could fawn over her, they now all strongly believed NOTHING should be allowed to change in Tomobiki so as to not scare the warlord's daughter off. In that, they actually reflected the beliefs of the alien maniac who could truly outdo Megane and his friends as being Lum's number one "fan"; according to what had been revealed about that bomb placed by the Niphentaxians in the Tomobiki Ginza, the leader of that race had been convinced that if _**something**_ happened that changed the lives of his "goddess'" friends on the planet, it would lead to a disaster for his own race. That comparison had gone far into souring the girls' opinions about their peers in the last month; such had led to some nasty fights between the two groups, those instances barely stopped by the teachers.

Before anyone could say anything, Shūtarō stood to attention, then deeply bowed to his friend. "My deepest congratulations, Rumiko-san." As the other boys all awked in disbelief on hearing that, he then gazed on the two battleships there. "I would assume, Ise-sama, that Rumiko-san might be assigned to assist Kii-sama and the others of her class just summoned at Yokosuka a month ago to better adjust to actually being living women instead of mere architectural drawings?"

"Sadly so," Ise noted as Hyūga giggled. "Even now that it's late spring, we're having the devil's time trying to wean them away from the kotatsu that had been left behind when Hornet's task force staged out of Yokosuka during the winter."

Many of the girls laughed on hearing that. Given the seductive powers the space heaters were said to have on foreign shipgirls, it had fallen to the Ise sisters to help Ōyodo retrieve them once the time came to put them away for the season came at the end of March. "Makes me wonder how Yonaga-sama is going to react once winter comes again and she'll have a kotatsu available to keep her warm," another girl, Obinata Hiromi, then muttered as she crossed her arms.

"Ataru-kun's going to have fun, especially with him together with Roma-sama," Hiromi's best friend Yamagata Masako noted.

The other girls laughed...

" _ **SILENCE!**_ "

People all spun around to see a flaring battle aura form around Megane, who was now glaring wrathfully at the girls. " _ **YOU STUPID BITCHES DON'T HAVE A RIGHT TO SAY SUCH THINGS!**_ " the leader of Lum's Stormtroopers howled...

...before he gargled as the honed edge of a sharp katana blade gently touched his throat. "Oi! You be quiet, you four-eyed _**traitor to humanity**_!" Hyūga gently declared, making Megane croak as he realized how close he was to becoming "a head shorter". "Yeah, that was a little much yesterday, what Taihō did to you at her admiral's command. But you idiots were evicted from that restaurant thanks to your obsession with that alien monster that tried to wreck Ataru-kun's life like she did!" As Megane squawked on hearing that insult laid out on Lum, the brown-haired aviation battleship leaned in to whisper, "You're lucky that Yonaga-san WASN'T here to hear that from you, Megane! If she did, she would have beheaded you for even THINKING of trying to bring that alien back here! WE haven't forgot what YOU ultimately provoked a year ago!"

As Megane nearly soiled his trousers on hearing the shipgirls blamed HIM for that whole thing with the space-taxi — which was Ataru's fault as everything else had been since Lum came into people's lives! — Ise chuckled. "You want to get your bags and books, Rumiko-san?" she asked. "We've got the car by the front gate and the girls are waiting to meet you."

Rumiko blinked, then she sighed. "Give me a moment..."

"Rumiko...!"

She ignored Shinobu's pleading look as she headed to get her bookbag...

* * *

 _ **Fifteen minutes later...**_

"You will be missed here, Tsuruya-kun."

Hearing that, Rumiko sighed before she shrugged. "Well, I'd like to say that it's been a slice of heaven, Sensei...but it hasn't," she admitted after exchanging bows with Onsen. Given what had been done to the cat-ghost Kotatsuneko two weeks ago when Ataru had come to retrieve his belongings from his old family home, the Principal was still in a nearly-vegetative state in his office. "And no, I don't follow the trend of a lot of people and blame Ataru-kun for the whole mess."

Hearing that made Onsen sigh before he gave her an understanding nod. "Some of us have taken time to think over what happened since the aliens came," he admitted. "A lot of people really did overdo it when it came to putting blame on him for things. A pity that dragon didn't bring us back until after that bomb was removed and the presence of those Niphentaxians was exposed. It would have derailed a lot of things from your former peers, especially from Megane and his crew..."

A disgusted snort answered him. "Personally, when it comes to Megane, I have to wonder at that, Sensei," Rumiko stated before she straightened herself. She had got changed to the unofficial uniform of all such people like her: A white gakuran-like suit that was of the same cut as a junior officer's summer uniform in the Imperial Japanese Navy, the honorary rank of lieutenant on her dark blue collar stands. She even had a proper peaked cap over her head, the chrysanthemum-and-anchor insignia over her forehead. "With your kind permission, Sensei, I'll be departing now for the Yokosuka Naval District to carry our my duties for the nation," she then said as she gave him a proper salute that would earn her points at Eta-jima.

Onsen bowed. "Do your best, Tsuruya-taii," he bade her before he gazed in amusement at Ise and Hyūga. "Take care of her."

"Always," the elder of the pair of aviation battleships vowed before they saluted him. "Teitoku," she then playfully bade the newest member of the Yokosuka family while she and her sister waved her to the waiting staff car nearby.

Rumiko nodded as she followed the shipgirls to the car, trying not to blush as dozens of voices cheering her on echoed from all three floors of the school building, mostly from girls who were glad to see that one of their number was moving on to help win the war against the Abyss that threatened so many even during the time that the aliens were here and things seemed almost "normal" as so arranged by elements of government to prevent Lum's friends from understanding the dire truth of what was unleashing itself all over Earth. Watching her go, Onsen nodded with delight before he moved to head back inside the school itself, where Sakurambō Sakura was now standing, a pensive look on her face. Like the vice-principal, the part-time Shintō shrine maiden and school nurse had been more than relieved on noting that Moroboshi Ataru was no longer around to haunt their lives...though she was now learning the man's departure for Sasebo inadvertently raised more problems than it solved.

"They'll be coming for Inu-kun soon," she warned.

Onsen grunted. "I don't blame her for wanting to leave," he noted. "Given how much that damned curse made us all forget everything about her..." He shook his head. "She could have died and we wouldn't have noticed. All save Moroboshi..."

Sakura nodded before they headed back to work, once more ignoring the Principal as he lamented his precious "Kota-chan"...

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, that moment...**_

"My Lord above...it's really that bad?"

John Richardson grimly nodded. "Even with all the success the Canadians and we have had when it comes to punching convoys through from North America to Japan, the Abyssals are simply not giving it up and they're doing everything they can to choke the country off from the outside world, even from Korea and Russia," he stated. "After Professor Crowing managed to get New Jersey back three years ago, we finally discovered the correlation between destroying the enemy and getting more of our warships back on duty as shipgirls. When Miss Negako got involved last year, she suggested that we start implementing what the Canadians do at Cornwallis concerning summonings: Using a form of blood magic to help people like yourself be upgraded with modern weapons and electronics, all based on wreckage salvaged from Second Iō-tō — Iō-jima to you — and Sable Island that the Canadians were able to retrieve just before Negi Springfield made his discovery."

Tennessee nodded in grim understanding. "Well, I'm at the state where I was when I was decommissioned and put into mothballs. Full anti-air suite for the time period and my ship type along with the 5 inch 38 calibre dual purpose guns below my main armament. Radar and other electronic gear are the same. Does this interfere in case Canadian escort groups come into range and we have to coordinate things to get the convoys into safe harbour to unload their cargoes?"

"Not really," the one-star in charge of American shipgirls in Japan answered. "Unlike most other magical departments, the Canadian Ministry of Magical Affairs and the magical leaders of their First Nations, the Métis and the Inuit — the Eskimos to you — were in on the project to launch shipgirl summoning at Cornwallis within a week of the return of Kongō and her sisters thanks to Negi. Given General Raeburn was Master Hosan's adopted daughter, she had scrolls containing the knowledge concerning the base theories surrounding shipgirl summoning at her home in British Columbia, which could be accessed by their specialized warfare forces if necessary. The result when Sackville came shocked everyone, especially the Abyssals." He handed her a sheet of paper that showed a diagram of what the reborn version of the last Flower-class corvette could do.

Seeing that, the modernized standard whistled in approval. "Oh, my! Rapid fire dual purpose gun even faster than my quad Bofors, anti-aircraft missiles that could also double as light anti-ship missiles, torpedoes that don't fail and have much longer range and in-flight manoeuvring capability, faster speed even if still on a single shaft and modern electronics, including radar and sonar! That must have been quite the ugly surprise when her escort group got the first convoy to Britain."

"Fortunately, a successor team to the War Hawks has a hyper-polymath in the group," Captain (Navy) Wendy Armstrong, senior liaison of the Royal Canadian Navy to Japan, added. "He was able to breach the wall between shipgirl magic and the level of mesonium-based hyper-technology that he was normally used to working with thanks to General Raeburn's discovery of that alien observation post on Ellesmere Island at the start of the last century, where Quttinirpaaq Magical Penitentiary is located now. Thanks to that, shipgirls of all nations were retrofitted with modern communication suites which allow them to speak with others without the need of carrying iPhones around." She held up her own mobile phone in emphasis. "We hope that once things calm down, we can start retrofitting shipgirls of other nations with modern missiles and electronics."

"For us, that's stuck in committee in Washington," Richardson muttered, shaking his head. As Mutsu and Jintsū smirked on hearing that, he added, "There's a fear among many in government that if we escalate to missile warfare that the Abyssals will respond in kind. There have already been battles where ebony mesonium warheads have been used in attacks on shipgirls and shore locations in hopes of causing large casualties or unleashing a mass breakout of metahuman incidents. Fortunately, the ships of CANBATRON ONE and elements of the Specialized Warfare Regiment of Canada step in to put a stop to it before it goes crazy. Given the fears our former alien guests have concerning the metahumans of Yiziba, it's understandable."

"Will the aliens invade?" the namesake of the Volunteer State asked.

"No," Richardson said with a shake of his head as he crossed his arms, glad to deliver the good news here. "A native of a suburb of Los Angeles named Elizabeth Wakefield was accidentally teleported to Yiziba when she was still in sixth grade; she's in grade ten now. She made contact with the Seeker's Forge and became the current Academician, the top-flight polymath on that planet. Right away, she moved to protect her hometown of Sweet Valley from the Abyssals — it's not too far from Santa Monica on Route 101 near Vandenburg Air Force Base; you'd know it as Camp Cooke — then got friends, including her twin sister Jessica, Gifted as well." The just-returned battleship was quick to sense the emphasis on that word. "As soon as the Urusians came to launch their 'invasion' last year, Miss Wakefield began a project to seal off the part of the solar system from the asteroid belt inwards from outside intrusion. Given the scale of the area she wanted to cover, it took her up to two weeks ago to get it done and close Earth off from interference. With that shield in place, the aliens won't be a problem."

"Are they monitoring communications?" Tennessee asked. "I'm sure radio and that new system people use these days..."

"Television," Jintsū provided.

The American battleship nodded. "Well, won't signals be picked up?"

"They can be," Armstrong noted. "That hyper-polymath in our regiment was quick to team up with Madame Academician to help block the signals to prevent even the Tritonians from picking up on things. Given the close friendship between their crown princess and Miss Redet, it was deemed to be wise. Despite how Miss Redet did accept what happened to Mister Moroboshi, there has to be some resentment in Onishuto and other intergalactic capitals that we came down so harshly on their presence on Earth. It's guaranteed that the Niphentaxians would be spoiling for revenge. After the Moroboshi siblings helped the Noukiites and the Yizibajohei liberate the Avalonians, they were turned from one of the local cluster's top powers to mere paupers in an instant. That won't sit well with whoever took that Ōgi brat's place in New Hollywood."

"Or whatever they're calling that city now," Richardson lamented.

Both naval officers chuckled at that private joke while Tennessee blinked in confusion, wondering what was so funny. "What would they expect, Wendy?" Mutsu asked. "Don't they know what happened with that thing concerning the space-taxi?"

"I strongly believe they simply wouldn't care about that, Chiyoko," Armstrong noted. "Hopefully, Ataru's friends from Noukiios — especially Lady K'ekhech — will make them see reason soon enough. If not his adopted sister on Yiziba."

"How many sisters does he have?" Tennessee asked.

"Three," Richardson answered. "Miss Negako, you know about. She's Imperial Special Agent #49, the woman who ensured that when the Heavenly Sovereign of Shōwa called it a day in 1945, peace was achieved with the elimination of the fighters of the Black Dragon Society to save the War Hawks all the extra work. The other two adopted sisters are Avalonian bioroid clones of Ataru. One is Hiromi. She currently lives in Tomobiki at the Toranoseishin Finances Tower complex there. She was forged from a magical camera replica of Ataru thanks to some in-class film project concerning school violence; her kami was preserved by all the underlying magic of Tomobiki and was allowed to be effectively reborn thanks to Miss Negako. Right now, Miss Hiromi is the matriarch of the Moroboshi Clan, which gives her power and influence with the Heavenly Sovereign. The other one is Tariko. She was created on Okusei from life energy that had been stuffed in Ataru thanks to some weird incident concerning a lollipop given to him by Miss Redet that actually turned him into twins. While his own soul didn't get fractured because of it, the extra life energy was still inside his body and was siphoned off to allow a new incarnation of Coyote of Yiziba to be reborn. Currently, she's on that planet, but ready to go over to Uru in case some idiot there gets stupid."

"It's similar to the way you were created, Alex," Armstrong added.

Hearing that made Tennessee relax. "Well, if the Good Lord allowed this to happen, then there's no sense arguing against it." She then sighed. "What about our forces here, sir? I know Pennsylvania and Arizona are here..."

Richardson tried not to groan. "You'll be probably dealing with them both quite frequently from now on, Lieutenant," he warned. "Sonia — Arizona — still feels as if she failed her crew at Pearl Harbour by not being ready when the bombers came in. Atop that, she's in her commissioning rigging from 1916. Try as we might, we can't get her upgraded to 'Kai' format that could put her in a position like she was at Pearl, much less a 'Kai Ni' that would make her the equal of her sister."

"She has gravitated to Yoiko given what Patricia-san did for her," Mutsu noted. "Given that Yoiko has missiles now..."

Tennessee nodded; her own small staff of intelligence faeries had got the full brief on the seventh carrier of Operation Z thanks to Mutsu's and Jintsū's own intelligence faeries. "Given that it was her admiral that actually planned the attack on Pearl, I can't blame Miss Yoiko for wanting to get those Sea Sparrows and the rapid-fire guns on her. She's been quite the busy person in the Arctic if all the tales about the 'Angry One' that Chiyoko and Junko have told me about are true."

"That she has," Jintsū noted.

Richardson held up his hand to get the conversation back on track. "Because of that, Sonia is still wracked with a lot of guilt and uncertainty. There's also the 'idol factor' as well. You know how it was like when people spoke of her after the attack, Alex." He shook his head. "SECNAV and the CNO both are VERY wary of allowing Sonia to head out on deployments because of her lack of any decent modern equipment in her rigging, to say nothing about how people would react if they learned Arizona was sunk again even if she was fighting the enemy. We all know that shipgirls need the chances to do missions to self-improve, but Sonia's obsolescence makes it hard even for me to send her out on a mission. We can't send her to America. She'll be like you in that regard even if a lot of people in Congress and even the White House would desire it."

"Don't insult her like that, sir!" Tennessee protested. "Sonia is just as capable as the rest of us when it comes to fighting!"

"Agreed, she is. And she has performed splendidly on her missions. But I want you to keep an eye on her, Lieutenant." He then took a deep breath. "And keep a very close eye on Lieutenant Penn as well. She's suffering from PTSD issues."

"Shell-shock and survivor's guilt," Armstrong added.

Hearing that, Tennessee winced. "Oh, Margaret...!"

* * *

 _ **Naval Base Kitsap Bremerton Annex, that moment (local time: Sunday 21 May, a half-hour after supper)...**_

" _ **I PROTEST THIS!**_ "

"You can protest it all you want, Congressman. But you're NOT getting your way this time!" the smiling Marine major general in a proper combat utility uniform said as he gazed upon the physically older man. An older man who was dressed in fashions more befitting for the Roaring Twenties than the modern era, Vice Admiral Samuel Williams wryly mused to himself with a smirk as he watched this confrontation between the commanding general of the 7th Marine Division (Magical) and the senior representative of Washington's magical population to the Magical Congress in downtown Manhattan. "We just had another incident concerning Abyssals willing to fire weapons containing ebony mesonium warheads at either Seattle or Vancouver. Captain Gervais was within her proper remit to make use of her primary weapons to defeat the attack before it came to harm anyone on either side of the border. Those orders were issued on the authority of Her Majesty the Queen by His Excellency the Governor General to the commander of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron, Rear Admiral Heather Thompkins. As he is senior officer for the eastern Pacific, Admiral Williams is within his rights to learn what happened and why it happened."

"He's a no-maj, Paul!" John Gibson of Tacoma snarled. "He's got no right...!"

"The President disagrees, Congressman," Paul O'Brien immediately countered. Williams knew he had served for a decade as Chief Marshal (Magical) of the United States until he had been mobilized at the order of President Josiah Bartlet at the request of Secretary of Magic Samuel Quahog four years ago to help the Auror Bureau help keep the shores of the Union safe from the Abyssals until the shipgirls came. His face softened as he added, "Don't tell me President Bartlet has no authority in this case. You've read the Magical Constitution, John. You majored in constitutional law at Seven Hills after you graduated from Ilvermorny. Stop trying to bluster for your friends! It's far too late! You've seen it as much as I have!"

Hearing that, the silver-haired conjuration master — he retired from a teaching position at the Seven Hills Wizarding Academy in Virginia five years ago to protect the magicals of his home state — took a deep breath before a wry smile crossed his face. "My friends won't give up, Paul," he then said as he sat down in the chair provided for him by CWO2 Sarah Gale. Also present at this meeting were two American battleships and one Canadian battleship, the latter of whom was currently enjoying some tea while a division of gushing Fletcher-class destroyers all stayed close to her. "They refuse to see what's on the Internet concerning how many no-majs know the secret now. All they see is the coming of a new round of the Salem Witch Trials."

"Congressman, may I ask you a question?" Washington then spoke up.

He looked over. "Yes, Commander Stevens?"

"I had nimmib crewmen when I was in commission as a warship, as did Dakota," the namesake of the congressman's home state stated as she waved to South Dakota. "They knew from their relatives that studying the story of the Salem Witch Trials and the founding of the original post-Statute North American Wizengamot was considered mandatory at the Salem Academy. I would assume Ilvermorny and Seven Hills as well." As the others nodded, the second of the North Carolina-class battleships said, "I know some teachers used a form of hypnosis to make the students understand the fear that ran through people's minds in that time period when the Scourers such as Gunnery Sergeant Stone's ancestor were running amok." Here, she nodded to John Stone, now standing guard with a friend at the main door to the admiral's office. "Does that still happen?"

"It does, Commander," O'Brien answered. "At least at Seven Hills it does." Despite his relative youth, he had served as a private in the 72nd Marine Regiment during the War of Liberation. "I'm not sure about Ilvermorny or Salem..."

"It does. That's something Mollie Bean's complained about often," Gibson noted with a wry smile. "Admiral, ladies, please try to understand our worldview. We were raised in a culture of fear when it came to the no-majs discovering our existence. Despite all the efforts many made from the time of President Lincoln's tenure in the White House to today, mugalophobia is still a fact of life among many American magicals who went to Ilvermorny and the other schools, even among many no-maj-borns. Of course, we do our best to try to keep up with developments among no-majs, but that fear is a living thing to us." He shook his head. "I'm aware that Sam Quahog is technically a cabinet secretary in the unified executive government of the nation. Many others consider it a 'no-maj lie', just like those aurors who attacked Chief Warrant Officer Gale because of her relationship with Commander Stevens believed." He closed his eyes. "The Abyssals just make it worse..."

"We're fighting to protect everyone in the country, Congressman," Dakota noted. "Metahumans and normals alike, sir." She ignored the slight shudder in Gibson's body on hearing her address magicals and non-magical metahumans by just one term for both, which was something no "right thinking" magical could ever accept. "The Abyssals — except those like little Hoppō and her friends who defected with her — don't give a shit what one is. If you're human, you deserve to die."

"And given that a lot of magicals don't live close to the coastline anyway save for the major cities like New York or Los Angeles, they've not had real experience in dealing with the enemy," O'Brien finished for the namesake of the Mount Rushmore State. "Sure, a lot of civilian volunteers have gladly gone out to help the aurors and later us to help keep the coastlines protected, but the majority have stayed quietly in their homes, thinking this is just a temporary thing."

"And not the second coming of the Übermenschen," Stone noted.

"Speak your mind, Gunny," Williams bade.

"Aye, sir," the descendant of the first generation of Scourers said before he gazed on the senior magical congressman from Washington. "Congressman Gibson, even if I myself don't give a damn about what a good number of modern Scourers want to see happen to folks like yourself, we all sure as hell realize that the Abyssals are just as bad as what the Undying Lord helped create to ultimately avenge the death of General Raeburn's adopted father before the Second World War. Magicals like yourself are lucky that most of you are sufficiently inland enough to escape them, but those things aren't going to stop. What's to stop them coming up the Mississippi or go up the Saint Lawrence to hit cities like Saint Louis or Chicago?" As the congressman gaped on hearing that, the native of Massachusetts shook his head. "Shipgirls from the Gulf Fleet and the Canadian Atlantic Fleet have warned about this dozens of times. Sooner or later, someone's gonna break through..."

"Never sailed up the Mississippi," Dakota muttered.

Gibson shuddered. "Damn...!"

"You have to lean on the others in the Magical Congress to stop trying to muck things up behind the scenes, John," O'Brien noted. "We can't keep trying to keep everyone safe if we have some damned staleblood fifth column trying to stab us in the back." As some of the people in the room winced at such a harsh comparison, the native of Connecticut shook his head. "We need to be united now, just as we were back during the war against the Übermenschen, John. We..."

A crashing noise caused people to spin around as the door flew inward, a girl's yelp echoing through the room. As people looked, a moaning destroyer moved to stagger back to her feet. "'M okay...!" William D. Porter muttered.

Williams sighed. "Report, Lieutenant Porter."

Hearing that, the bespectacled destroyer quickly got herself to attention, saluting her commander. "Sir, begging to report that we just got a message from Recruit Training Command Great Lakes," Porter declared. "Battleships Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio just reported to the quarterdeck there, sir. And there was another one, but this one's a civilian ship, sir."

Eyebrows shot up. "Who exactly?" Carolina asked.

Porter sighed. "Edmund Fitzgerald."

Jaws dropped. "Okay...!" Williams moaned...

* * *

 _ **Nerima, near Fūrinkan High School, noon...**_

"'I just be da XO, which means Ah gits all the shit details'."

Darkly chuckling as that quote from Tom Clancy's penultimate Jack Ryan story slid from her lips, Akebono could only smirk as she smartly walked down the street towards the area where the restaurants of the Ōizumi neighbourhood were located. That was about four blocks from both Fūrinkan High and the Tendō dōjō, the usual nexuses for the weirdness that had haunted this ward of Tōkyō proper when Saotome Ranma was still alive. Shaking her head again as she recalled what she had been briefed on concerning that selfish, conceited jerk and the others of the so-called "Nerima Wrecking Crew" when they terrorized the whole of this part of Tōkyō, the eighth of the Ayanami-class sub-variant of the Fubuki-class destroyers then quietly thanked the Kami for getting Moroboshi Negako in there to save Ranma's female-self from this place and giving her the chance to live her own life as Hayashi Kanami. From the few times the destroyer who also possessed the human name Ashikaga Akemi had met the new student of Saiko Jinseijutsu-ryū, Akebono had found a kindred spirit. If Kanami hadn't locked in on becoming Taihō's "special boatswain's mate", the lavender-haired destroyer with the royal blue eyes would have claimed her.

"Ah! You shipgirl!"

Hearing that voice, Akebono groaned before she looked over. "Yeah! And you're a fucking sore loser who couldn't get that someone who's far more sexy than you could whip your ass so easily back in your village, cat girl!"

Hearing that sneered comment from the destroyer, Nǚ Shānpú jolted before her own anger and frustrations that had billowed over the last few months roared to the surface. "What you call me, dirt mouth?! You want to fight?!"

"So you can land that 'kiss of death' shit on me, bitch?!" Akebono said with a knowing smirk. "Kanami's filled me in on you, that stupid stalker who wants to crawl into your panties and the rest of the shitheads in this town, _**Shampoo**_!" She sneered the local pronunciation of the warrior-maiden's name in emphasis. "You're even more arrogant than all the shitty admirals I've had to deal with, both as ship and shipgirl! 'Three thousand years of Nǚjiézú history'?! That's a laugh!" As the slowly-growing crowd of bystanders began to snicker at the destroyer's sharp tongue and the fact that she was applying it so deftly at one of the late Saotome Ranma's would-be wives — who was often seen by normal Nerima natives as a very unwelcome guest due to her arrogance and single-minded determination to drag her "husband" back home to honour so-called "laws" that had no power in Japan — Akebono turned to head up the street, the level of contempt she felt for Shānpú rolling off her like a morning tide. "I'm on official business! Go crawl back to your village! If you can get across the East China Sea, by the way!"

With a snort, she headed off...

" _ **HOW DARE YOU INSULT SHĀNPÚ LIKE THAT, YOU EVIL CREATURE?!**_ "

Akebono sighed...

...before she jolted on hearing a shriek of agony echo over the street!

Spinning around, the destroyer looked...

...then she winced on seeing Shānpú's would-be husband Liào Mùsī crash onto the ground nearby, his right arm below the elbow now gushing blood thanks to the bold stroke of a katana welded by the fifth of the Yamato-class, who calmly stood by. As the crowd gasped in awe on seeing Yonaga, Akebono blinked. "Um...what are you doing here, Yonaga-san?" she asked as the tall and muscular battleship-turned-fleet aircraft carrier calmly drew out a cloth to wipe the blood from her blade.

"Ataru-san got the notice of your coming here, Akebono-san, then saw that I was transported right away to make sure you weren't accosted by Kanami-san's so-called 'friends' while doing your mission," Yonaga calmly declared as Shānpú lunged over to staunch the bleeding from her would-be husband's arm. "Why are you helping him, Guìmèi Shānpú?" she asked.

Shānpú gave the carrier an annoyed smirk even if she tried not to blush madly on hearing the seventh carrier of Operation Z address her with that honorific...and to do it with a perfect court Mandarin accent to boot! "We have no other help at the restaurant, Jiànnǚ Yonaga," she then declared in very literate Tōkyō-standard Japanese, not the pidgin version she often used for other people. "My apologies for not recognizing you right away, Jiànnǚ Akebono," she then said as she moved to put a tourniquet on Mùsī's arm while the wounded weapons-master moaned out a torrent of curses in his native tongue. "You always have been said to have the sharpest tongue of all the zhànjiàn shàonǚ serving the Son of Heaven in this land."

Akebono nodded. "Just mind your own business and stay away from Kanami," she stated. "And keep the stalker in chains. We see his ugly puss anywhere close to any of the Naval Districts, we're using it for target practice."

"Death will not be his final fate, Guìmèi Shānpú," Yonaga coldly added.

"You monsters have no right to interfere...!"

Both shipgirls turned...

...then Akebono scowled. "Oh, shit! The half-gaijin LIAR shows her ugly puss!"

Hearing who this newcomer was, Yonaga sneered as she turned and marched towards Saotome Nodoka, who paled as she raised her wrapped family sword up as if to shield herself from this oncoming monster's wrath. Seeing that, the carrier's scowl turned into something truly ugly before her features melted into something near serene. Noting that, the onlookers all blinked as they wondered what might happen now while Nodoka seemed to relax, gearing herself to dress this thing down...

 _ **KK-KKRACK!**_

Everyone gasped on seeing the wrapped Saotome honour blade fly out of Nodoka's hands in two pieces, deftly cut in half by Yonaga's katana. As the matriarch of the local part of the Saotome Clan screamed in horror on seeing such an act, the carrier's blade was deftly returned to its scabbard. "I will have to apologize to your most honoured grandfather for destroying such a lovely gift to your family, Nodoka-dono," Yonaga then stated, her own sarcasm flooding every word she spoke. "Then again, I think Jones-hakase would truly understand given that your family has no shred of true honour within it. A liar and a thief! It's a wonder to me Kanami-san turned out so well given what horrible influences her parents were!"

" _ **RANKO!**_ " Nodoka then shrieked out. " _ **HER NAME IS...!**_ "

Her face nearly imploded after Yonaga flicked her nose with her finger...which, coming from the living personification of the largest warship ever built in Japan, nearly crushed Nodoka's skull. As she was flung back to slam against a nearby telephone pole, the carrier moved to stand closer to Akebono. "You defy Tennō's wishes with your honourless prattle, Nodoka-dono," Yonaga coldly declared. "Do so in the future and you will suffer the same fate all child abusers should suffer for their crimes, as that yūjo Yamaguchi Kinshō will endure when her time finally comes! Come along, Akebono-dono. Let's leave these poor, suffering people to their own business and be done with the mission that brought you here today!"

" _ **YONAGA BANZAI!**_ " one elderly man nearby screamed out.

A roar of banzai cheers escaped many of the others, that mixed with a waterfall of insults against Saotome Ranma's parents and other members of the Wrecking Crew for the disruptions they brought to Nerima. Hearing that, Yonaga smiled, nodding before she placed a hand on Akebono's shoulder to guide the destroyer away from the scene. Watching them, Shānpú smirked before she drew out one of her chuí to knock Mùsī out so she could carry the dazed idiot back to the Nekohanten...

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

"Holy shit...!"

"Wow...!"

"Akane-chan, if you think you can take THAT on...!"

Hearing that from one of her best friends, Tendō Akane could only sigh before she shook her head. She and her small group of friends from Class 1-4 had walked out of the school to spend their lunch break at Okonomiyaki U-chan in lieu of putting up to members of the "Horde of Hentai" who were still determined to press their own desires for her despite the recent downfall of their leader. "No, Yuka-chan, I'm not that crazy," she noted as she turned away from the scene of her would-be mother-in-law now in a similar state her would-be boyfriend Kunō Tatewaki had been left in by Taihō over a day before, a disgusted snort escaping her. "If she can't see Reality standing before her, I'm not helping her. Or that fool panda she married. They should be just happy that Kanami-san is out there making a name for herself and moving to get on with her life. What happened to Ranma was his idiot father's fault; that was confirmed by both Shān's great-grandmother and Ojii-chan yesterday when we told everyone what Taihō-san warned us about after she took Kunō down." She then lowered her eyes. "Ranma..."

Comforting hands landed on her shoulder from both Asano Sayuri and Akane's other best friend Tokoro Yuka, they giving her supportive squeezes as she tried not to break down and cry at the lost chances she now had with her would-be iinazuke. Nodding her thanks for their support, she waved the others with her. "C'mon," she bade. "Ukyō should have her shop open now, so we can get something to eat. Lucky thing we've got the first period in the afternoon off for study hall."

"Yeah!" another of the girls present, Ayuhara Natsumi, called out.

Cheers escaped the other girls as they headed down the same street that Yonaga and Akebono had taken, passing the barely-conscious Nodoka without comment. "Wonder what they're doing here anyway," Yuka then mused.

"How did Yonaga-sama get back to Japan so quickly?!" Sayuri then noted. "Last I saw from Shipgirl Watch was that she was in Scotland with a whole bunch of folks from Sasebo and Kitsap to look in on Nagato-san's adopted son."

"The one that goes to that wand-magic school there?" Natsumi asked.

"Same kid. Negako-sama discovered some way to use some old magic to bring back the German H-class battleships and the British Lion-class battleships. They even got the Project G15 aircraft carriers the Imperial Navy wanted to build as a follow-on series to Taihō-sama." Interest in that particular aircraft carrier had picked up considerably at Fūrinkan thanks to what Taihō had done the previous day. "According to Shipgirl Watch, they even got back the Project A-150 class, too."

"The follow-on series to the Yamato-class?" Yuka asked.

"Hai, same pair," the other girl affirmed with a nod. "Ōmi and Mino are their names now; they were chosen by that on-line poll they ran about proposed names for the unnamed warships of the Greater East Asia War two years ago." As the other girls nodded, she added, "They're at Sasebo right now waiting to start training. People in Yokosuka are waiting for Ōyodo-san to have her meltdown getting FIVE fleet carriers — SIX with Yonaga-sama now! — and TWO super-battleships...!"

A _ding!_ sounded from someone's skirt. "Mine!" Wakaba Hinami, Natsumi's oldest friend, called out as she pulled out her mobile phone. Flicking the screen on, she gazed on what was there. "Great! They got pictures of the new shipgirls that got summoned!" As some of the other girls leaned closer to look at the images, Hinami nodded. "Damn! Kanami-chan's going to have her hands full with this bun-...!" Her voice then stopped with the speed of a falling guillotine blade while those girls around her were now gaping in shocked disbelief at one particular image. "Oh, ye gods! I can't believe it...!"

Akane looked over. "What, Hinami-chan?!"

Hinami held out the phone to show the picture.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Akane-chan...she could be your _**twin sister**_...!" Yuka hissed out.

Akane blinked in disbelief at the image of the shipgirl version of what had once been proposed as Warship No. 5021. Given the name "Tennō Heika Gunkan _Sekihō_ " — which was now seen as the official class name of the Project G15 carriers — the shipgirl born of the kami of that warship indeed looked as if she was Tendō Akane's twin sister. Bearing the same general slender build of most fleet carriers, she was dressed in the same uniform her older half-sister wore at sea: A long-sleeved white bolero tunic over a red pleated skirt and black thigh-high stockings with armoured plates. An armoured abdominal plate was placed under her perky breasts to reflect on the actual armour she would have worn as a warship, a dark grey armoured collar bearing the gold Imperial chrysanthemum around her neck. Her face was literally Akane's in detail, right to the sparkling dark brown eyes and the stylishly-cut hair, though Sekihō wore a headband with winged projections like Taihō wore.

"Ye gods...!" Sayuri hissed.

"That's gonna drive Kanami-chan crazy!" Natsumi noted.

"No..."

Eyes locked on Akane. "Akane-chan...?" Yuka probed.

A tired sigh answered her. "Taihō-san was right, Yuka-chan. I treated Kanami-san like she was nothing at all." Akane shook her head. "She's got every right to hate me. I just hope she doesn't heap that all over that girl."

Sayuri blinked. "Akane...!"

"Let's go eat."

She then headed off towards Okonomiyaki U-chan. The others remained in place for a bit, then raced off after her...

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

"She's still a shitty bitch!"

Hearing that from the shuddering destroyer, Yonaga sighed in clear disapproval. "Akemi-san, you should curb that language of yours. Warriors of Tennō need to act more reserved in the presence of others. Not like drunken and honourless rōnin."

Akebono snorted before she sighed, shaking her head. "You don't know how much of a mess Kanami was in when she came to the Naval District after the New Year's, Yoiko-san," she said, trying not to bite off a dozen profanities in the direction of Tendō Akane and her friends. "Taeko saved her as much as she saved Taeko...and it was all from the bastards that live in this town, treating her and her brother like they were prizes in some popularity contests and not people with their own hearts and dreams. Kanami's a real admiral, just like Ataru! Yeah, Gotō and Richardson are pretty okay for officer pukes — way better than the fools that ran the Fleet Shipgirl Project at the start — but I'd trust Kanami leading me into a fight than anyone else!"

Hearing that, the carrier chuckled. "Well, let's see what this mysterious message received by our Avalonian friends in Yokosuka will lead us," she bade. "Onward at cruising speed. Be ready for action at an instant, Akebono-san."

The destroyer curtly nodded. "Hai!"

With that, both shipgirls walked down the street towards a closed yakitori restaurant that was located a block away from both the Nekohanten and Okonomiyaki U-chan. As they walked, Yonaga and Akebono returned polite bows from passers-by with nods in return; no doubt, the Nerima rumour mill was working at warp speed to pass on the news of the effective final downfall of Saotome Ranma's mother and one of his would-be rivals to those who had been forced to watch such madness close up for over a year. Reaching the door of the restaurant, Yonaga politely knocked in a three-pause-three code. A moment later, the door opened to reveal a girl with raven hair in pigtails and dark brown eyes, she dressed in flattering clothes that clearly displayed a figure that marked her as a second year in high school. Both shipgirl's sharp eyes were quick to note the elegantly tapered ears barely yet still masterfully hidden under her hair. "Oh, thank Lyna! You're here!" she hissed. "Come in!"

"You are Avalonian?" Yonaga asked as the two shipgirls slipped inside, their host moving to close and lock the door behind her.

"Half," the girl reported. "My father was Niphentaxian. He sent me here as an independent observer to prevent me from being turned into an icicle if they found out I had a 'robot's' blood in me. I'm Arisugawa Yui, by the way."

Yonaga and Akebono nodded. "How can we help you out today, Yui-chan?" the latter then asked, quickly sensing that their host was both determined and desperate to get this business over with and get out of Nerima.

"You can help by asking the Liberator to give me access to the bioroid factory, Akemi-san," Yui stated as she waved them to a stairwell leading to the upper floor, giving the destroyer a knowing look. "To disguise myself when I carried out duties for the Cultural Observation Ministry, I became a student at Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School. It was on an island in the Ariake Sea off the coast of Kumamoto in Kyūshū. By the time the Abyssals came to destroy the island, I was a freshman, that was last winter." As they reached the top of the stairs, Yui tapped a code into the security keypad beside the door to unlock it. "I was able to get help from a friend based here in Nerima — another hybrid like me — to get my friends and teachers off the island to safety even if they're seen as 'missing' in government documents. But there were very big complications."

The door opened, revealing an older girl with her dark hair in twin French braids, her chestnut eyes under reading glasses. She was also dressed in stylish clothes. "Hey, it's about time you got here, Akebono-san," she said before her eyes fixed on the taller shipgirl there. "Holy shit! You even brought Yonaga-san here?! Cool! I'm Hirato Yūko! Welcome to the Nerima Bordello, whose very willing yūjo were once formerly part of the bordello that was 'M.C. High'!" She waved them inside.

Hearing that flippant statement, Yonaga shook her head. "Please make...!"

Her voice then screeched to a halt on seeing the nearly double infantry companies' worth of young women spanning all three years of high school — along with a dozen or so twenty-something teachers — lounging in the large recreation room that seemed to fill the second floor of this particular building. All of whom were exceptionally beautiful and well-exercised...as neither shipgirl could ignore for the simple fact that all of them were dressed in form-fitting school gym clothes.

And they were all gazing upon the four women at the stair landing there with blank looks on their faces and eyes that clearly showed they had been either drugged, hypnotized or placed under the infamous Imperius curse...!

"Oh, shit...!" Akebono hissed out.

"Hai," Yui breathed out, her face twisting with both shame and frustration at the current state of people she loved with every fibre of her being. "Since about a year before I arrived at the school, a scientist named Murata Eiichi led a small team of Self-Defence Forces scientists into doing a controlled case study on how people who lost all their inhibitions would react." As Yonaga tensed, the hybrid high school sophomore shook her head before she gave the carrier a knowing look. "Hai, Itō-taisa. He's the grandson of the leader of one of the research cells of Unit 731, the specific group which was concerned with the after-effects of ebony mesonium poisoning on the human body. He even had the original research notes...!"

Yonaga grimly nodded as Akebono began to mutter a tidal wave of curses. "How were these poor women affected by this yakuza's work, Arisugawa-dono?" she demanded, making the alien-born girl gape, her cheeks reddening at such a show of respect by this living shipgirl samurai. "Can they be freed of whatever damned curse is now on them? I know Murata Yoshiharu had connections to the Black Dragon Society who wanted to overturn everything Yomigawa-gensui wanted to see done in the War of Liberation. How exactly did that particular creature's dark thoughts and dreams come to plague these poor women? Why wasn't the school closed when the Abyssals moved to attack coastal cities?! If the school was on an island...!"

"Makoto-san!" Yui barked.

"Hai."

One high school sophomore girl rose from a chair to walk over to join them. Seeing her, Yonaga was quick to sense she was born of considerable wealth and privilege; the healthy skin and lack of any malnutrition she had seen on many people since she returned to Japan spoke volumes about how much this particular girl had been cared for by her family. Even with the dazed look projecting from deep within her caramel eyes, she had a friendly face, framed with long brown hair done in a high ponytail. She was incredibly well-exercised, looking as if she could run forever; seeing those toned legs, the seventh carrier of Operation Z was instantly reminded of Iowa and New Jersey. Standing to perfect attention before Yonaga, the girl remained as still as a statute, the only movement being the gentle rise and fall of her chest in metered breathing. Before the carrier could ask what was going on, Yui reached under her shirt to pull out a small bell chime, then she rang it once.

For Hyūji Makoto, it was like she had just been stabbed with a live electrical wire. She jolted before her body began to shift more naturally as she relaxed herself. Yet her eyes were still gazed as if she was in some type of trance. Still, she was quick to give the taller woman before her a very appraising look before she gazed upon her friend and rescuer. "Yui-chan, is this the person I am to serve today? The bell is rung and I am ready to do whatever is ordered of me today."

"I know, Makoto-san," Yui stated. "This is Itō Yoiko-taisa, the living kami of Tennō Heika Gunkan _Yonaga_ , fifth of the Yamato-class. She just returned to Japan after over seventy years being trapped in the Arctic Ocean. She's of an older school of behaviour, so she doesn't understand your full capabilities. Treat her with the respect and courtesy she deserves. I'll ask Ayako-san to look after her friend here." She waved to Akebono, who jolted on being singled out like that.

"They are jūgun-ianfu, aren't they?"

That was Yonaga, who was giving her host a knowing look while a look of pure, raw _**desire**_ crossed the face of the former track star for Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School. "Effectively yes, Itō-taisa," Yui breathed out in a voice of ashes.

"How'd you guess?" Yūko wondered, a curious look on her face.

"You called this place the 'Nerima Bordello', Yūko-san," the carrier noted before she gazed to the northeast. " _ **Jane-san!**_ " she barked out in a voice that seemed to rattle every window in the building and nearby made Yui and Yūko yelp.

« _ **What is it, Yoiko-san?!**_ » a cultured voice with a faint French accent called from somewhere, making Yūko and Yui glance around to detect the source of that voice and Akebono gape in awe on realizing Yonaga was speaking to one of the Ryūseizen.

" _ **Are you still in Mahora at this time?!**_ "

« _ **I am. Why?**_ » Lady Jane replied.

" _ **Have every magical and normal healer in both the Tōmagun and 'W' Commando come to my location at once! I'm in Nerima, in the Ōizumi neighbourhood, five blocks north of Fūrinkan High School! Akebono and I now have to deal with a massive case of brainwashing unleashed by the grandson of one of the workers from my old 'place of employment', one who loved to compare notes with the monsters that slew Master Hosan and forced the leadership of the Tensei-ryū on your senior formation commander back in 1937!**_ " Yonaga ignored the visible winces from Akebono and her still-sane hosts as they sensed the disgust in her voice; Makoto simply smiled as she awaited her "pillowing partner's" instructions. " _ **An entire girl's high school was rendered into a troupe of jūgun-ianfu**_ _ **over two years ago! One of our new Avalonian friends rescued them from the Abyssals, but has no means to reverse the brainwashing and allow these girls to have their lives back! If they can't be broken of this madness, they'll have to ensure body-swaps to become bioroids!**_ "

« _ **WHAT?!**_ » the second of the Lady Elgin-class battleships shrieked...

* * *

 _ **Okonomiyaki U-chan, an hour later...**_

"Oh, man! I'm stuffed!"

"Ditto! You can roll me back to classes now!"

"You really do it the best, Ukyō-chan!"

Hearing that from her classmates, Kuonji Ukyō smirked as she moved to secure all her cooking instruments to ensure they didn't start a fire while she was attending afternoon classes. She had intentions of finally transferring out of Fūrinkan High School at the end of the spring term two months from now, but didn't want to see her normal education messed up because she really had no reason to remain in Metro Tōkyō anymore. "Dōmo, Sayuri-chan!" the native of Kyōto called back as she leaned down to turn off the gas feed to her stoves. "Well, like it or not, we better get out of this place and get back to that zoo. Even if old man Kunō isn't around to cause us shit because of his son, there's the ki-vamp to worry about."

The others from Class 1-4 groaned. Much that they often weren't targeted by the likes of Ninomiya Hinako when she went on a tear to put a stop to the "chronic delinquency" that haunted Fūrinkan High School, the threat their current homeroom teacher could present even to a bunch of effectively normal girls was something NO ONE at the school ignored. In the wake of yesterday's incident concerning Kunō Tatewaki and Taihō, the once-sickly "apprentice" of Happōsai had gone on a tear to try to locate the long-departed Hayashi Kanami — of course, referring to her as "Tendō Ranko" — and punish her for bringing such a monster to the school in the first place. Since Kanami had long since departed Nerima to eventually relocate to Sasebo, Hinako hadn't succeeded in "punishing" her; much to Tendō Akane's personal amusement, a whole tonne of the "Horde of Hentai" felt the teacher's wrath when she couldn't drain the ki of Ranma's sister and make her attend classes.

"We gotta do something about her one of these days, Akane-chan," Ukyō stated. "If she ever pulls those tricks on any normal person, she could kill someone. She's been lucky so far that everyone at Fūrinkan has some sort of martial arts training."

Hearing that, Akane nodded. "Yeah..."

Once the last of the dishes were put away, everyone stepped out of Okonomiyaki U-chan, though the others waited for the chef from Kansai to close and lock up her shop to prevent people from getting into it. Once that was done, everyone then moved to head down the street to get back to classes; it was still another twenty minutes to the start of the first afternoon break, but it was best to be inside the school building before that happened in case Hinako was on the warpath.

"...stupid thing! Who the heck was in charge of Kyūshū defences back then?!"

"Don't ask me, Michiko! This was before Richardson's time!"

"At least that nice alien girl was there to protect those poor kids!"

"Can't believe a freaking SCHOOL of nice girls got turned into COMFORT WOMEN!"

Hearing that dark phrase, Akane gasped before she spun left...

...then she gaped on seeing the infamous destroyers of the so-called "Tsundere Division" from Yokosuka — save for their most profane member — marching up the street in the same general direction that Akebono and Yonaga had gone over an hour before, their sea rigging out and murderous looks on all their faces. "What on Earth are THEY doing here?!" Akane demanded as Michishio, Kasumi, Murakumo and Hatsukaze marched with deadly determination towards a nearby side street.

" _ **DELINQUENTS!**_ "

All the girls tensed on hearing that outraged shriek, then they looked south...

"Oh, shit!" Ukyō muttered. "This is NOT going to end well!"

"Good riddance, at least!" Asano Sayuri noted; she had hated it whenever her current homeroom teacher had used that damned power of hers on her frequent dating partner and one of Saotome Ranma's male friends, Chanpatsu Hiroshi.

Some of the other girls nodded as they watched a puffing Ninomiya Hinako charge up the street in the destroyers' wake, her handy ¥5 piece at the ready. Of course, said destroyers hadn't heard the screaming child-form teacher, intent as they were to meet with their friend and her current formation commander to help out with the mission in hand. Before Akane could shout a warning to the near-namesake of her own elder sister, Hinako stopped, focusing her powers on the last of the Asashio-class destroyers. " _ **YOU STUPID DELINQUENTS! I TOLD YOU TO STOP! HAPPŌ**_ _ **GO-EN SATSU!**_ " she barked.

Ki billowed towards that ¥5 piece from the general direction of Kasumi...

...and nothing happened.

"Huh?!" Akane gasped for all her friends, all of whom had their jaws around their ankles now.

Hinako was just as surprised from the total lack of result from her usual means of putting delinquents down. She had felt the fighting energy of those young girls carrying those clearly dangerous weapons down the street in front of innocent people, including a considerable number of girls from her homeroom class at Fūrinkan who had gone to Okonomiyaki U-chan to have a nice lunch cooked by another of her students. Yet when she used her power on them to disable them before she could call in the authorities to have them arrested and disarmed before they could hurt someone with those obvious guns and other weapons...! Noting that, she snarled out as she yanked out a ¥50 piece from her skirt, focusing once more on target.

" _ **I TOLD YOU TO HALT, DELINQUENTS! HAPPŌ**_ _ **GOJŪ-EN SATSU!**_ " she screamed.

Again, the ki billowed towards her from the general direction of Kasumi...

And again...

...nothing happened.

"Whoa! They're totally invulnerable to the ki-vamp's power!" Ukyō exclaimed.

"Of course they're invulnerable, Ukyō-chan! They're SHIPGIRLS!" Wakaba Hinami exclaimed. "Personifications of WARSHIPS built by HUNDREDS of workers and manned by HUNDREDS of sailors! No thing meant for NORMAL people can affect them!"

"Just like a lot of magic can't affect them," Tokoro Yuka noted.

The other girl nodded. "Hai!"

Silence fell as they considered that, then Akane sighed. "So what do we do?"

"Let her go," Ukyō darkly noted, her lips twisting into a sneer. "Yonaga-sama's going to notice her. It's clearly obvious that Kanami-chan's briefed all the shipgirls about the ki-vamp. They might decide she's a 'yōma' and kill her, especially since she can't seem to tell that they're NOT students at our school and any one of them could easily kill her just like Taihō-san nearly killed Kunō yesterday, not to mention what Yonaga-sama herself did to Ran-chan's useless mom before lunch!"

The others considered that, then Akane nodded. Anything that removed any sort of threat against her or her friends that was unleashed by her current principal was definitely a welcome development at Fūrinkan High School. "Okay. Let's go."

"Hai!" the other girls chimed out.

With that, they headed south to carry on with afternoon classes. Before they even got a dozen paces down the street, they were nearly shocked out of their school uniforms by a pained shriek of agony bellowing from behind them. Spinning around, they gaped on seeing Hinako get flung out from the side street the four "tsundere" destroyers had moved to walk down, she smashing back-first into a handy telephone pole! As the sickening wet crunching noises indicating that DOZENS of bones had just been shattered in the child-form teacher's body echoed over the scene, Akane shook her head. "They knew she was there all along," she mused as she gave her friends a dark smile. "You called it, Ukyō. Kanami-san must have warned them."

"Well, Taihō-sama was based in Yokosuka until she got shifted to Sasebo just yesterday to form a task force with Yonaga-sama," Hinami noted. "Since Kanami-chan left town around Christmas, that gave her at least FIVE months to make sure all the shipgirls there knew what problems could come out of this place, especially when it came to people who wanted to get on Ranma-kun's case for whatever reason. How could Akebono-san have known about Shampoo and Mousse like she did?"

"True!" Sayuri noted. "So what should we do?"

"She was interfering in the business of the Combined Shipgirl Fleet," Akane declared, shrugging. "That's a crime since we're in a war situation. It wouldn't surprise me that Yonaga-sama might decide to BEHEAD her on charge of _**treason**_."

"Well, that's just too bad," Yuka noted. "We better tell Nanba-sensei."

"Yeah! Since Kōchō-sensei is off trying to get his 'Tacchi' healed up, Nanba-sensei could get the thing fired!" Sayuri noted.

"We could probably get rid of them both finally," Ukyō noted.

"Good point," Akane stated. "Let's go."

With that, they ran off to school, leaving the bleeding and bruised mess that was their homeroom teacher lying on the street...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Taii** — Navy lieutenant, Army captain, Air Force flight lieutenant (NATO rank code OF-2); **Guìmèi** — Literally "your younger sister", this is an honorific that would be applicable when addressing a female stranger of younger age; **Chuí** — Spheroid-headed battle mace; **Jūgun-ianfu** — Wartime comfort woman; **Happō Go-en Satsu** — Happōsai's ¥5 Death; **Happō Gojū-en Satsu** — Happōsai's ¥50 Death.

The **Eight Magical Imperial Commanderies** ( **Yattsu no Teimajutsu-gun** ) is my name for the eight regional **Magical Associations** whose existence was effectively noted on in _Mahō Sensei Negima_. The directors of all eight commanderies, including **Konoe Konoemon** for Kantō and his son **Konoe Eishun** for Kansai, form a ruling magical council in lieu of a single Mahō-Shōgun which sends one of their members to Geneva as Japan's representative to the ICW.

The **Kii-class battleships** were a class of four fast super-dreadnoughts that were proposed as follow-on ships to the **Tosa-class battleships** from which THG _Kaga_ was originally meant to be before the Washington Naval Treaty saw her converted to an aircraft carrier. Effective replicas of the Tosa-class concept (which were ten-gun versions of the preceding Nagato-class battleships), the Kii-class were ordered in 1921 and scheduled to be laid down at the start of the next year, but were cancelled thanks to the Washington Naval Treaty. Only **THG** _ **Kii**_ and her sistership **THG** _ **Owari**_ were given names. The names given to **Warship No. 11** ( **THG** _ **Harima**_ ) and **Warship No. 12** ( **THG** _ **Buzen**_ ) are my creation. Note that in _World of Warships_ , Kii was originally proposed to serve as the Tier 8 battleship in the game, but was later replaced by the Amagi-class battlecruisers.

List of shipgirls mentioned here:

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **HMCS Sackville** — Wendy Rose Kirkland

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Hōshō** — Asano Hoshie  
 **THG Ise** — Kawasaki Ikuko  
 **THG Hyūga** — Kawasaki Hoshiko  
 **THG Kii** — Hiraga Kiko  
 **THG Owari** — Hiraga Otome  
 **THG Harima** — Hiraga Haruka  
 **THG Buzen** — Hiraga Hisae  
 **THG Akebono** — Ashikaga Akemi  
 **THG Michishio** — Akatsuka Michiko  
 **THG Kasumi** — Akatsuka Kasumi  
 **THG Murakumo** — Fukushima Mayako  
 **THG Hatsukaze** — Yuhara Hikaru

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS William D. Porter** — Michelle Jane Porter  
 **USS Illinois** — Anne Mary Atkins  
 **USS Kentucky** — Josephine Claudia Sanders  
 **USS Indiana** — Joanna Ann Jennings  
 **USS Ohio** — Eliza Arabella Garfield  
 **SS Edmund Fitzgerald** — Elizabeth Michelle Fitzgerald


	8. The Final Downfall of the Death Eaters

**_DISCLAIMER:_** ** _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_** **Copyright Act** ** _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, the headmaster's officer, Monday 22 May, breakfast (Tōkyō time: Two hours before supper)...**_

"Please, Reiko...tell me this is some sick, horrid joke..."

"No joke, Professor."

Silence fell over the scene as Albus Dumbledore took a moment to mentally devour what he had just overheard from Nagato ultimately from Yonaga, then he reached over to draw out a bottle of firewhisky from his desk. Conjuring some glasses, he then asked in a voice that was now straining mightily to be jovial, "Is it five o'clock over in Tōkyō at this time, ladies?"

"It's damn close enough," an ashen-faced New Jersey muttered. "Hit us, Professor!"

"Ja," a scowling Bismarck bade from her position close to the window, the urge to summon her rigging, go find something to wreck and destroy it almost overcoming her well-vaunted, Prussian-influenced Teutonic self-discipline.

"You said your sister was there, Elaine," Warspite noted as their host poured drinks for the battleships and carriers in his office to enjoy and help settle their churning hearts after they got the ghastly news out of Nerima. Currently, all of the students were enjoying breakfast, though the sharper of the lot were quickly sensing something bad had happened. "Can she help these poor women?" she asked the crimson-haired magical super-battleship seated close to the Floo portal.

Lady Elgin nodded as she sipped her apricot tea, quite calm even in the face of what her little sister was now involved with thousands of kilometres away. "It may lead to body-swapping for all those poor unfortunates, Charlene," the elder of the world's largest battleship class said as Fawkes trilled out a soothing song to allow the others in the room to calm down. "The factory itself is currently at the third Sol-Earth libration point; in other words, it's directly opposite from us vis-à-vis the Sun itself. It would be child's play to transport these girls to the factory to have them freed of this brainwashing. With 'W' Commando in country now to help out, a sweep for the maniac who did this to them can be done right away."

Dumbledore nodded as he distributed the drinks to his guests. While he had seen his own share of horrors in his long lifetime — the magical Battle of Petrográd in 1919 when he fought alongside Svetlána Múrometsa and the Magical Red Army to destroy White magical rebels after they slaughtered hundreds of defenceless goblin children rather hardened his heart to that thing — the disgusting nature of what Murata Eiichi had unleashed on the poor staff and students at Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School in Kyūshū still shocked him. As he tried not to dwell on what the grandson of a senior research scientist of Japan's infamous Unit 731 could have done to women under his nominal charge at Hogwarts — with ebony mesonium, it was hideously easy; all the victims of Murata's "experiment" in Kyūshū had been tested and found to possess dangerously high levels of that material in their blood — the headmaster swallowed his shot of whisky, ignoring the smoke escaping his ears. "I'm sure, Yasuko, your sister's talent for intensive 'interrogation' will come very much into play when they catch this man."

"Oh, it will, Kōchō-sensei," a very grim Yamato hissed as Enterprise tried not to squeeze the battleship's hand off. Swallowing her own shot glass with nary a wince, she shook her head before leaning over to kiss her lover's forehead. Seeing that, her fleet mates and friends all gaped. The nominal first of her class of super-battleships was as cultured to everyone as her own name hinted at. To see _**Yamato**_ of all people fire back the booze with the same panache as Jun'yō or Chitose...!

"It's a pity that Negako-sama was too swift with that Voldemort fool," Musashi said as she cracked her knuckles, though she was barely restraining herself from hurting her gracious host by doing that welcome exercise too loudly. Nodding her thanks as Nagato handed her a shot glass, the second of her class sighed. "Much that I'm glad that your friend was so willing to deal with that Umbridge bitch, Elgin-dono, I still want to get some special 'exercise'." As the others coldly laughed, Musashi drank the firewhisky, then she sighed. "A pity that this Voldemort's lackeys will soon be without their precious magic thanks to Negako-sama and what she did yesterday before supper to make them see how weak they are. Still, I want a piece of this filth!" She then shook her head as she reached up to draw off her reading glasses, pulling out a cloth to wipe the accumulated steam that had fogged her vision from them. "Sadly, Onē-sama has first right of vengeance on this swine. I wonder how she'll make this creature squeal before we shatter his soul and sent it to the Dharmachakra to see him reborn as a dog...!"

"May I ask why that is so, Commander Itō?"

That was the portrait of Dumbledore's predecessor as headmaster, Armando Dippet. "Easily explained, Professor Dippet," Nagato stated. "Unit 731 was the unit that 'commissioned' Yonaga when she was completed in mid-1941. While Admiral Fujita and his staff didn't have anything to do with the atrocities that unit unleashed on the enemy during their time in China, the association between that group and Yonaga is strong in the eyes of the Kami as a whole. Hai, Tennō was quick to absolve Yoiko-san of any legal responsibility towards the victims of Unit 731, magical and mundane. But she still has a _**moral**_ responsibility to ensure that anything that even HINTS of that unit's actions does not come to harm any living being."

"You told me of what your people discovered on Nakanotori-shima two years ago, Reiko," Dumbledore stated. "Given that she herself was abused by her father until her own magic saved her, Tsukiko would NEVER have allowed such a thing to happen." He then shook his head. "Still, it doesn't surprise me that there were elements of the Imperial government who didn't care for her open acceptance of equality for all Asian magicals, especially if they hailed from places such as Korea. Since this particular unit was based in Manchuria at the time, it wouldn't surprise me that they somehow learned by proxy about Tsukiko's goals in that war and decided that since it didn't fit their own worldview, they would move to sabotage it."

"Especially since the Americans and Canadians were showing support for it on the magical side," Jersey added as Iowa and Enterprise nodded. "We hear that a lot from vets of the 7th Marine Division we encounter from time to time. It was a real 'magical knight's war' in the Pacific in those days. It's a pity the normal side couldn't have been that nice." She then shook her head before holding out her glass for a refill, which Dumbledore obliged. "Then again, given all the fucking racism...!"

The others all nodded...

...before Dumbledore perked just as a knock echoed from the door. "Enter!"

The door opened to reveal a VERY pale Hoppō. "Mama!" she wailed as she flew into Nagato's arms. "It's scary! Scary!"

"What's scary, kiddo?" Iowa asked.

" _ **BIG BROTHER ATARU IS GOING TO PUT HIS DEATH ARMOUR ON!**_ "

All the shipgirls exchanged looks. "Oh, scheiß...!" Bismarck hissed out...

* * *

 _ **The north field...**_

"Calm down, Ataru..."

As Roma's words washed uselessly against the volcano of outrage that was about to consume him and allow THAT side of him to surge forth, Moroboshi Ataru suddenly felt a touch of sympathy for the likes of Robert Bruce Banner. Thanks to his family's connection to the War Hawks due to his adopted sister possessing equal grandmaster status to Dean Raeburn, the Terran "tag race" champion serving now as the personal nostromo to the third Littorio-class battleship knew the Hulk existed in a parallel dimension. Noting how much the genius scientist from Ohio had tried and failed hundreds of times to fully master the raging monster inside him unleashed by a gamma radiation bomb, Ataru could only smirk as he imagined what the reaction of the idiots in Tomobiki would be once they learned of HIS own darker side that had first unleashed itself at Morningstar Plain...

All it needed right now...

"Ah! Filthy muggle!"

...was some poor schlep to volunteer himself to serve as stress relief!

" _ **CRUCIO!**_ "

The red beam of energy lanced out of a wide-eyed Amycus Carrow's wand just as the cold fire consumed Ataru, transforming him into something that made the current Baron of Norwich in the Wizengamot instantly think of the monsters that macabre American writer H.P. Lovecraft had dreamt up with in his stories of the Great Old Ones; despite his being a "proper" British pureblood, Carrow did have a private zest for muggle horror fiction. As the pain-crazed wizard gargled in robe-soiling terror as this demonic being gazed at him with a face that made him instantly feel an epiphany on realizing how much Voldemort's many victims may have reacted on seeing masked Death Eaters suddenly appear before their targets as they moved to ruin people's days, Ataru dipped his head down in an imitation of a very icy smile. " **Thank you** ," he hissed in his metallic-tinged voice.

As Roma shook her head in pity, Ataru lunged over...

A second later, a pain-filled shriek echoed through the air around Hogwarts!

* * *

 _ **By the greenhouses, that moment...**_

Hearing that, Pomona Sprout sighed as she used her wand to raise sound muffling charms. "Lucky thing we've got those nice shipgirls to keep the troublemakers out," the head of Hufflepuff muttered before heading in to get her students...

* * *

 _ **The Gryffindor tower...**_

"Oh, bloody, buggering SHITE...!"

Harry Potter looked over from reading his book; first period today was study hall. "What is it, Ron?"

A now white-faced Ronald Weasley turned slowly to gaze upon his friend. "Um, Harry, do you have any idea what Captain Itō's friend can do?" he asked in a voice that belied how much he wanted to run to his bed and hide under it.

"What about Ataru, Ron?" Hermione Granger asked.

Ron tried not to shudder. "Well, some sort of weird magic fire just turned him into this skeletal, metal-like thing...!"

He then gasped as Harry lunged over to look outside, then he gaped as a wild scream of delight escaped Nagato's son. "Oh, WICKED! He's turned into the _**Cyborg**_!" Harry yelped in glee. "I wonder what idiot got him so mad now?!"

Hermione was now just as white as Ron. "The C-c- _ **Cyborg**_...?!" the dentist's daughter from West Sussex sputtered. "You mean that living representation of the Avalonians' GOD OF DEATH?! The thing he uses to kill Abyssals _**princesses**_ with?!"

"Yeah! You got to come see this! It's so poi!"

The two blinked before they exchanged stunned looks.

That proved it.

Their friend was totally INSANE!

* * *

 _ **The north field...**_

"Are you going to try to stop him, Shack?"

"No, Tonks. I'd rather like to keep my head on my neck."

Hearing the derision in Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice as the small group of aurors moved to stand close to each other by the treeline at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Nymphadora Tonks nodded as she calmly holstered her wand. "Fair enough for me," the metamorphmagus said as she sat down on a nearby rock while they watched a small group of "reformed" Death Eaters apparate or portkey in to find themselves facing their own ultimate nightmare made flesh and mystical metal with the hardness of pure neutronium, the very same material that went into the Cat's Claw sword used by the Protector of All Life. "Wonder what got Ataru there so pissed off that he's letting that side of him run loose for a bit."

"Can't tell," Elaine Savage, the other corporal in Shacklebolt's detail, mused. "Lady Roma's having the devil's own time trying to calm the fellow down. Look at all that wasted magic those bastards are throwing off at her."

The others — even John Dawlish, the most politically-sensitive of the group; he was more often tempted to give Voldemort's followers the benefit of the doubt in incidents like this — nodded as Amycus Carrow's sister Alecto, Corban Yaxley and Thorfinn Rowe threw bludgeoning curses at the third of the Littorio-class fast battleships, said spells splashing off her armour with ease and leaving no damage. The bespectacled battleship known among closer friends as Roberta Ansaldo was famous among British magicals. That was thanks to her helping protect people in Diagon Alley three years ago when she and her sisters had been touring the area while the Abyssals infiltrated their way up the Thames to get at the annoying "sparkles" who had been their bane before the shipgirls came along to fight them. Even now, there were calls from more liberal members of the Wizengamot to see her, Littorio, Vittorio Veneto and Imperio awarded the Order of Merlin for their actions; the leaders of the Senato Magico in Rome had gladly made the four reborn fast battleships members of the Sacro Ordine di Befana, each at the rank of Ufficiale. Of course, _**every**_ magical in Europe also knew of the story of Roma's encounter with a rampant nundu in Libya within a month of her being summoned to the Scuola Militare Navale in Venice; while moving to protect destroyer Libeccio, the third of the Littorio-class battleships had literally KICKED the head of the attacking creature off its neck!

"They're stupid to attack him that way," Dawlish noted.

"Death Eaters were always dumb, John," Savage darkly noted.

"Oh! What's this?!"

The aurors turned...

"Good morning, Commander," Shacklebolt greeted, then he blinked. "Er...?"

Conqueror chuckled as she gazed in amusement at her latter-day namesake, who was currently accompanying her on a walk around the grounds. The third of the Orion-class super-dreadnoughts had shaggy, short-cut smoky grey hair and the crimson brown eyes she shared with her sisters. Like her sisters, she wore the beautiful ceremonial patrol dress of the Royal Navy Military Police, her rank of commander in the Royal Navy Reserve on her cuffs. The third of the Lion-class super-battleships was taller, with shaggy rusty red-brown hair and pale silver eyes. More visibly muscular, she was dressed in a mixture of Great War officer's uniform with the flash-protected work uniform worn by modern submariners like those who served on both battleships' attack submarine namesake that added the honour "Falkland Islands, 1982" to the shared campaign credits both bore. Thanks to their shared ship name, the shipgirls given the human names Helen Tothill (the older Conqueror) and Rhoda Wreford-Brown (the younger Conqueror) by Moroboshi Ataru did look like they were relatives, though not exactly sisters.

"Oh, don't mind us, Kingsley," the elder Conqueror stated. "I'm just giving the nozzer here a tour of the grounds should she be forced to deploy here for some reason, like protecting Commander Yamamoto's little one and his friends."

"That isn't recognized anymore, Commander," Dawlish warned.

The third of the Orion-class battleships snorted. "I'm afraid that Magic Itself will come down against whatever decisions the Lords Magical of the Wizengamot made concerning young Harry, John. Regardless of your feelings towards Field Marshal Countess Yomigawa, she did the magical adoption correctly. Or are you calling Baron Dumbledore a _**liar**_ , sir?" As Dawlish jolted, she then gazed out at the field, a churlish smile crossing her face at the carnage that Ataru was now unleashing on Voldemort's lackeys while Roma tried her best to calm him down. All the senior directors and many field agents of MI5 were fully aware of Britain's magical enclaves. Both squibs and normal-born magicals gladly served in the Security Service when they lost whatever chances they might have dreamt for themselves in places such as Diagon Alley, which gave the people at Thames House excellent intelligence when it came to Her Majesty's Magical Subjects. With Amelia Bones in charge of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the nice people who ran the Meridiana-aligned loyal magical villages in Wales gladly acknowledging the supremacy of the Crown over all, the chances of those who would loudly disapprove of so many "muggles" knowing the great secret of magic from ordering good people like the aurors beside her into action were next to nil.

Magical Royal Proclamations really did go a long way in many cases...

"Professor Dumbledore said it was right?!" Dawlish then demanded.

"He did, Corporal Dawlish," the younger Conqueror answered. "He briefed us all about what the field marshal did for Harry..."

"Guten Morgen, meine Damen und Herren."

"Ohayō gozaimasu, minna-san."

Heads turned over...

"Oh, bloody hell! Those bloody wankers in Russia actually made you look like THIS?!" the older Conqueror exclaimed on taking in the incredible measure of Brandenburg, who was now being accompanied by Sekihō.

The adopted native of Potsdam near Berlin who now went by the human name Beatrix von Meißen smirked as she gazed in amusement and clear interest at the lovely aircraft carrier who had the human name Ozawa Akane. "What our Russian friends think is proper, Frau Fregattenkapitän, I won't hazard to guess," Brandenburg said as her crimson brown eyes sparkled. "Frau Leutnant Ozawa wanted to explore the grounds. I felt it was wrong for her to go without escort."

The older Conqueror laughed before she blinked as a howling scream of pain escaped Yaxley, who just got his wand arm burned off thanks to Ataru's glowing left eye, which could fire a devastating energy beam that almost did as much damage as his own fists could do. "Ah, another disarmed fool," she quipped, making the other shipgirls laugh while the aurors shook their heads. "Kingsley, you people WERE warned of how dangerous Ataru is when he's in that state, weren't you?"

"Indeed we all were, Commander Tothill," Shacklebolt stated, smirking as the Carrow siblings and several others moved to avenge their fallen friend. "We classify non-magical metahumans with the same type of scale we use for magical creatures like the ones you love to hunt all the time." His dark eyes sparkled with amusement as he recalled how often field officers of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures screamed in helpless fury whenever they were asked to go look in on an incident concerning a slain magical beast, then learned the third of the Orion-class super-dreadnoughts was responsible for such death. That incident two years ago concerning an escaped Hungarian Horntail dragon that Conqueror caught in the Forest of Dean still had tongues wagging in the Ministry of Magic. He could only guess how much the woman's personal trophy room in her private residence on the north bank of the Clyde near Dalmuir actually contained.

"Class Five-X metahuman. Same level as any of the War Hawks," Tonks noted.

"Hey!"

Heads turned...

"Harry! You shouldn't be...!" Shacklebolt began before he relaxed on seeing who was with the Boy Who Lived and his closest friends. "Try to stay back so that no one has to work overtime in protecting you kids, alright?"

"They will be fine, Officer Shacklebolt," Arizona declared as she smiled at Nagato's adopted son, who had been accompanied by all his year-mates from both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw to witness this last battle of the Death Eaters. Also escorting them were the three destroyers of Taffy Three, Fubuki and her closest friends, Tenryū and the four girls of Destroyer Division Six. "Young Miss Shizuka has put up a standing air patrol that's ready to bomb and strafe these villains should they try to lop off one of those silly curses at our charges. Given how frightened young Hoppō gets when Ataru puts on that armour, learning that her 'big brother' was close by and watching over things might calm the child down. Much that he does become the avatar of the Angel of Death Himself when he assumes that form, Ataru is not evil by any stretch of the imagination whatsoever."

"I still can't believe that the Avalonians' GOD OF DEATH actually chose him as His mortal avatar," Terry Boot said as he crossed his arms. "What association does Marquess Moroboshi have with them or their ancestors on Sagussa?"

"When he was six, he visited Sagussa for two months, invited their by the Avalonians' cousins on that planet, Terry," Harry explained. "He doesn't remember that thanks to what happened when Negako-sensei's soul was fired into his mind after he made the Promise of Bunka-gonen, but Sensei thinks that his ability to put on that wicked armour of his came from that."

The others nodded. "If only his face wasn't so changed," Hermione Granger noted.

"Yeah, 'Mione, you're right!" Lavender Brown lamented. "How on Earth can Lady Roma kiss him when he's like that?"

Other girls in the group sagely nodded...

...before a scream escaped a wide-eyed Lancelot Jugson. As the destroyers all deployed their rigging and moved to form a protective wall around their charges, his pain-filled eyes locked on the hated symbol of the muggle lovers and their many allies who were trying to destroy all that was good about magical Britain and force them to submit to the muggle animals again. " _ **POTTER!**_ " he shrieked in vengeful fury as he levelled his wand at Harry. " _ **DIE! AVADA KEDAV-...!**_ "

His body disintegrated into a fine red mist after the thunder of three shipgirl-sized Cannone da 381/50 Ansaldo M1934 naval rifles echoed over the field. As all the students turned away just in time to NOT see Jugson die, Roma scowled as she moved her just-deployed turrets around to bear on the other Death Eaters, all of whom had frozen in horror on seeing such destruction. "Surrender now, mignotte di sanguemorto," she sneered out the Italian version of the term "staleblood", which made the purebloods on the field shriek in agony-filled outrage even if they were too tired or hurt to do anything against this dark monster of the seas sent by the muggles to subjugate good magicals and unleash a new Dark Times of Magic. "Your magic is slowly being ripped from you all thanks to what Grandemaestro Negako did to your precious 'dark lord' yesterday. Soon, you'll be nothing but helpless little magonò, flung out of your perverted 'society' to face Reality in all its cold and uncaring fury." Her smirk turned lethal as the Death Eaters all quaked. "Once the good people of these islands learn what sort of monsters you are, you'll all be sacrificed to the Abyssals. Know that no shipgirl will come to save you."

« _ **Excuse us, Lady Roma.**_ »

Roma perked, then she turned...

...just as the very ground at her feet began to mist over, allowing the glowing bodies of a platoon's worth of Hollows to rise threateningly over the fallen Death Eaters. As whimpers of mortal dread and moans of mercy escaped the people who had been slashed apart or beaten down by the transformed Ataru, the leader of this particular group of transformed spirits turned to politely bow to the third Littorio-class battleship. « _ **By order of Her Majesty the Queen as decreed by Her Most Royal Proclamation, we'll be taking these villains off your hands now. They are condemned for life in 'A' Block at Her Prison in Gonebren for Treason against Magic and Treason against the Crown. You and your fiancé can stand down now.**_ »

Roma blinked, then she nodded as she dispersed her rigging. "Make them suffer."

« _ **That they will, my lady. That they will.**_ »

The fog on the ground intensified for a moment as it seemed to cocoon over the fallen dark warriors, their helpless screams bellowing over the scene before they were lost in eternal silence as they were taken away to the moors of Cornwall...

* * *

 _ **Hogsmeade Station, a half-hour later...**_

"Thank you so kindly, Ms. Southern."

"Pshaw! Pay it no mind, Commander!" Jean Southern, the elderly witch who served as the representative of Honeydukes aboard the Hogwarts Express, said with a smile as she finished handing care packages of sweets to the smiling mob of four River-class frigates, six Flower-class corvettes, three Castle-class corvettes and one Bangor-class minesweeper standing there. She then beamed as she handed the largest package to the rusty-haired fleet carrier the Canadians accompanied up here so she could serve as defence for the just-summoned Lion-class and Hessen-class super-battleships as they reported for initial indoctrination at Whitehall in London and the Bendlerblock in Berlin. "Given the hard work you put out in stopping those evil monsters from killing everyone in the British Isles, it's the least my company and I can do in these trying times."

"Well, your chocolate is even better than the stuff those folks in the magical quarter of Québec City can make, ma'am," frigate Saint Catharines stated. She was flagship of the Eighth Canadian Escort Group, composed of frigates and corvettes named after localities in Ontario in and around the Niagara Peninsula; their nickname was the "Canal Mob" after the Welland Ship Canal that connected two of the Great Lakes. In the hand of the girl known to closest friends as Antonia Pickard was a bar of Honeydukes Best Chocolate; the raven-haired, green-eyed frigate's face was splattered with streaks of that sinful candy.

That instantly made the two century-old muggleborn from East Sussex blush madly. One of the oldest magical citizens in Britain, she had graduated from Hogwarts as a Hufflepuff in 1829, going to work for Honeydukes right away. Like most normal wizards and witches in the United Kingdom, she had her misgivings about shipgirls when they first appeared...though with the actions of beings such as that beautiful Italian battleship who had killed that nundu in Libya to save her friend — to say anything of the Lady Yonaga herself; magical creatures such as house elves had given the fifth of the Yamato-class the respectful nickname _**She Who Scares the Dark Ones**_! — Southern had long changed her minds about these beautiful nymphs who symbolized the best of all normal people. "You're too kind, Commander Pickard!" she said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I better get things stocked up for the return trip to King's Cross. A total of twelve battleships, Commander Power?"

"Plus myself, the girls here, Hood, Warspite, Bismarck and most likely Graf Zeppelin, Ms. Southern," Ark Royal advised.

"Right-oh!"

With that, she headed off, moving as quickly as she could given her infirmity. "Close formation, girls," Saint Catharines stated. "We'll take the short-cut across the lake to the Great Hall to meet the others."

"Aye, ma'am!" the other Canadian shipgirls chanted.

Ark Royal smiled as Saint Catharines and her sisters Crowland, Port Colborne and Fort Erie moved closer to her; since all had Harpoon missile launchers as part of their modern refit after they were summoned at Cornwallis, they could provide an instant and devastating counter-punch if a surface ship got daring. The Flower-class corvettes Trillium, Oakville, Brantford, Dundas, Thorlock and Merrittonia and the Bangor-class minesweeper Burlington formed the outer ring with the three Castle-class corvettes Humberstone, Tillsonburg and Simcoe — as they had RUR-5 ASROCs in the eight-cell Mark 112 box launchers as part of their armament — formed the middle layer; given Ark Royal's fear of submarine attack because of her sinking near Gibraltar in 1941, the only ship of her class of carrier was always happy to have such well-armed escorts close to her.

« _ **Unknown aircraft carrier now in Hogsmeade, this is flugzeugträger Graf Zeppelin**_ ,» a woman's voice with a low Allemanic accent called out over secure communications as the group of thirteen shipgirls made their way down the road that connected Hogsmeade with Hogwarts on the other side of the lake; close to their location was the well-worn path that freshmen students always took to the boat landing that would transport them across the lake to the castle beyond. « _ **We just detected you with your escorts disembarking at the Hogsmeade Bahnhof proceeding to the Hogwarts Großersee. Please identify.**_ »

Ark Royal sighed as her radar picked up on the flight of Fw-190Ds that were soaring overhead. Much that the American training carriers Sable and Wolverine had done wonders with the namesake of the inventor of the first rigid airship when she went to Great Lakes to undergo basic training, there was still too much of the Prussian noblewoman within Graf Zeppelin's heart. « _ **Honestly, Amélie! Do you HAVE to sound like you're some stupid Prussian Junker on the parade ground?!**_ »

« _ **We are at battle alert right now.**_ »

That made the escorts all tense up. « _ **Graf Zeppelin, this is CANCOMESCGRU EIGHT. Sending recognition codes**_ ,» Saint Catharines signalled as all the girls around her instantly summoned their rigging, their radars reaching out to scan the territory.

As Ark Royal drew out her combat bow and pulled two arrows from her funnel-shaped quiver to prepare to send out two flights of her point-defence fighters aloft — thanking Heaven that she had steam catapults to launch her aircraft even when she was on land and didn't have any decent headwind! — silence fell over the radio waves for a moment as the lead ship of her own class of carriers analyzed the signal the namesake of one of Canada's largest cities just sent. After a moment, the signal came back, « _ **Recognize your security codes, Gruppenkommandeur**_ ,» Zeppelin called back before a touch of joviality entered her voice. « _ **I'm sorry about the need for that, Amy. Ataru is here and he's in a rather ribald mood at this time.**_ »

« _ **How ribald is 'ribald' then?**_ » Ark Royal called back as she tensed herself.

« _ **Full battle armour, meine Freunde**_ ,» Zeppelin replied. « _ **We just had a visit from several of the so-called 'Todesser' that were tearing our local magical friends apart a decade ago. Ataru's sister just dealt with this Voldemort idiot yesterday afternoon. And we have some very ugly news from Japan as well; Yonaga had to go there to deal with something that hit a little too close to home for her. If you smell the local version of pfefferschnaps on our breath, don't be surprised.**_ »

« _ **That bad?**_ » Saint Catharines mused as Thorlock and Dundas stepped onto the Great Lake, sailing out towards the castle.

« _ **It was something that was started by a relative of that Hässliche Einheit 731 that actually 'commissioned' Shizuka's sister before the fun in the Pacific started in 1941, Antonia**_ ,» Zeppelin warned. « _ **That set Ataru off.**_ »

That made the first modern fleet carrier of the United Kingdom wince. « _ **Right! Putting up a patrol squadron!**_ » she called out as she stepped into the water, her full rigging forming as she charged into the wind. « _ **Launching!**_ »

« _ **WAIT!**_ » Warspite broke in. « _ **ARK ROYAL, ABORT! WE'VE GOT...!**_ »

The droning of sixteen hypercharged Pratt and Whitney Canada R-2030C Maple Wasp radial engines echoed over the waters...

* * *

 _ **The Great Hall, that moment...**_

There was ONE sound four certain veterans of the Battle of Midway feared above all else.

It hadn't come out during their attack on the island four years ago, when they dealt with the first incarnation of the Midway Princess in hopes of eventually re-opening trade routes across the Pacific from America to Japan via Hawai'i.

But they had heard it on several occasions.

Usually when it came to three British-built Canadian light fleet carriers named Warrior, Magnificent and Bonaventure. Not to mention two American-built escort carriers manned by Canadian sailors in World War Two named Nabob and Puncher.

And even if the modern incarnation of the brave Canadian pilots who had flown top-cover for the attacking angels of Task Forces 16 and 17 seeking to avenge Pearl Harbour that day would never dream of harming a Japanese kanmusu now...

...hearing the primary power source of a Sopwith Canada So-48 Camel II attack fighter — no doubt, they had been given to Ark Royal to replace her Fairley Fulmar Mark Is — STILL sent shivers of mortal terror down their spines.

"Only a squadron...!" Sōryū moaned as Hiryū instantly drew out prayer beads to make the bad kami go away, muttering prayers.

"'Only a squadron', she said...!" a sick-looking Akagi muttered.

As Kaga squeezed her beloved friend's shoulder, Zuikaku could only shake her head as she calmly enjoyed her tea. "Don't worry, Kei," she then said as her golden brown eyes sparkled with mirth. "Patricia-san's here to help you out."

She indicated Chennalton, who was just shaking her head...

* * *

 _ **The headmaster's office...**_

"Only a squadron...only a squadron...only a squadron...!"

As a sobbing Yamato was comforted by a sympathetic Enterprise, Warspite had a contrite look on her face. "I am truly sorry about that, Yasuko," the second of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships stated. "We did put out the warnings to everyone who faced the Corps of Air Cavalry back during that dratted war that our older carriers had two squadrons of Camel II FTA4s gifted to us by the RCCAC Association to help everyone get over being equipped by Fulmars and the like...!"

"Why is she complaining?" a confused Bismarck asked. "When I was in the western Atlantic, Magnificent put up her entire wing — it was the equal of a short regiment as our friends in the Königlichen Kanadisches Korps der Luftkavallerie...!"

" _ **YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! A REGIMENT?! SAVE ME, YVONNE!**_ "

As the first of her class of super-battleships dived under Albus Dumbledore's desk to make it rattle, Enterprise sighed. "Luisa, in Operation Ten-gō in 1945, Yasuko faced two whole BRIGADES of those things atop what we sent after her!" the second of the Yorktown-class carriers reminded the first of her class of fast battleships before she knelt down to comfort her lover.

That made Bismarck blink. " _ **TWO BRIGADES?!**_ Lieber Gott! That's nearly FOUR HUNDRED AIRCRAFT! And that's IN ADDITION TO the aircraft you sent against her, Yvonne?!" She shook her head before looking at Musashi. "And they still call her a 'hotel' all the time?" With a chuckle, the German battleship stepped out of the office to get something to eat.

As Musashi puffed with pride, an embarrassed chuckle escaped Yamato while Dumbledore calmly sipped his firewhisky...

* * *

 _ **Nerima, north of Fūrinkan High School, a half-hour later (local time: An hour before supper)...**_

"We're rid of her...!"

"The monster's gone...!"

"She actually put that thing down...!"

"We're free of her...!"

As Tendō Akane and her friends exchanged knowing looks and smiles on hearing many of the boys from Fūrinkan exchange heated comments concerning the final downfall of Ninomiya Hinako, the large gathering of boys then spun at once to gaze upon destroyer Kasumi, all with grateful looks on their faces. One of Saotome Ranma's friends, Bosabosa Daisuke, bowed his head to the profane ninth of the Asashio-class destroyers. "Kasumi-sama, please accept our deepest thanks for what you did to remove such a dark and evil monster from our midst! All of Fūrinkan High School is in your debt for this glorious act!"

"KASUMI BANZAI!" his best friend Chanpatsu Hiroshi called out.

The other boys were quick to jump in. " _ **KASUMI BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI!**_ "

That made the destroyer with the greyish-silver hair in a side ponytail blush as she tried to summon up some righteous wrath at these bastards for what they did to Hayashi Kanami; like all the other shipgirls who were currently based at Yokosuka, Kasumi had got all the gory details from Taihō concerning what had befallen the carrier's new special boatswain's mate. Before she could fire off a stream of welcome curses at these stupid kids, a gloved hand landed on her shoulder. "Leave them to their celebrations, Kasumi-san," the ice-cold voice of the fifth of the Yamato-class calmly stated. "Even if their behaviour towards Taeko-san's new lover was quite dishonourable, I've been told of that yōma you just disposed of." A sneer then crossed Yonaga's face as she gazed over at the covered body nearby on a stretcher; the metamorphic teacher had finally succumbed to massive internal bleeding an hour before and the morticians were late in retrieving the corpse. "Her removal will do much to bring cheer to the poor students of Fūrinkan and allow sanity to finally cloak that school in a welcome embrace. I know of the Kunō Clan. Even if they are samurai, their eccentricities are staggering to behold at times."

The destroyer known to close friends as Akatsuka Kasumi smirked as she moved to rejoin the others, Yonaga following her. "We got rid of the would-be samurai. The Hawai'i nut would just be target practice. All we need to deal with is the cheat who loves to drug people." She scowled as she focused her eyes on the crowd of ambulances nearby, all now being filled up with dazed former staff and students of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School for transport to Yokosuka, where a combined team of healers from the Kantō Magical Association and the Yukon-based "W" Commando of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Foresters would get to work in undoing what had been done to them. "She might have helped out on this, Yoiko-san," she then added in a whisper as she gave the carrier a warning look. "According to Kanami, she was one shit-hot chemist."

Yonaga nodded. "If she comes, we will deal with her as necessary, my..."

She then perked as her SPY-1 radar instantly picked up on a flight of fast-moving jets coming her way. Looking to the east, she was quick to see a "finger four" formation of twin-rudder supersonic jets passing over the scene, they in the grey colour of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Kasumi had also detected them. "Oh, yeah! Warrior just came in with the Double Sixes; they just did a sweep of the area around Nakanotori-shima to make sure some idiot Abyssal doesn't turn it into a base!"

The carrier blinked. "That was one of the so-called 'hidden isles' our magical friends took over and masked from normal view."

"Yeah! Turns out there were assholes who didn't like what Yomigawa-gensui was doing back in the war and wanted to turn it into a base to create those Obscurial things to use against the Americans," Kasumi muttered, making Yonaga gasp. "We just found what was left of the place two years ago. The bastards that set it up didn't do their quality controls right and the poor kids that were tortured to become weapons disappeared on them." She then paused before whispering, "They..."

"They were also part of Unit 731."

"Hai..."

Yonaga shuddered before she looked over. "Springfield-sensei!"

A yelp of surprise escaped a man who appeared to be of the same age as the Fūrinkan students who were watching the sad scene nearby. "Um...h-hai?!" Negi Springfield called out before he came over. "Is there a problem, Captain?"

Yonaga leaned down to glare directly into the young battle-mage's dark brown eyes, her grey eyes now storming with barely-controlled fury. "A personal favour I must now ask of thee, Master Negi," she whispered in a more classical form of English than she normally used, that making him stiffen. "A message I ask thee to convey to Master Konoemon when thee returns to the beautiful land of the World Tree. I wish to know the current locations of ANYONE who was affiliated with the thrice-accursed 'research unit' that gladly helped mask my existence to spies from other nations and ended up bringing terrible shame to the honour of the late Heavenly Sovereign for their accursed actions against the innocent peoples of the world."

Negi blinked, then he curtly nodded, an icy smile crossing his face. Had any of his former students from Class 3-B at Mahora seen that, they would wonder for the man's sanity. "Your own honour is badly stained because of the revelation of this sordid affair," he calmly said as he then gazed intently at the victims of one scientist's interesting perversions before he shook his head, then he looked back at the carrier. "It will be my honour to convey your simple request to His Majesty's Magical Warlord of Kantō, Captain Itō. Perhaps the aftereffects of this disgusting incident will be the one thing that will see the Honourable Earl Countess Field Marshal Yomigawa of Hizen properly summoned back to duty as His Majesty's Supreme General of Magic. I'm sure once that happens, the veterans of the War of Liberation will gladly answer the call to duty once more. And all the dishonourable criminals and Traitors to Magic and their mundane supporters to be hunted down and removed from this life."

Yonaga's eyebrow arched. "You would welcome that?"

A smirk crossed Negi's face. "Anything that makes those hidebound fools in Geneva have ulcers because of their mad fear of normals discovering magicals is always welcome to a Meridiana alumnus like myself, Yoiko-san."

A smirk crossed her face. "I'd love to hear this story, Negi-san."

"When I can spare time from my duties, I'll visit you in Sasebo and tell them. I honestly doubt that Negako-sama and Ataru-san would know the whole story." He then bowed politely to her. "Please excuse me, Yoiko-san."

With that, he headed off to join his father's best friend Takahata Takamachi, who was currently discussing things with the officer commanding "W" Commando's support company, Major Dana McMurray. Gazing upon the middle-aged veteran of the home defence campaign against the Übermenschen and the Black Dragon Society, Kasumi shook her head. "You honestly would think the Foresters would be smarter than that, wearing those coonskin caps instead of proper berets!" she said as she gave Yonaga a knowing look. Indeed, the native of Dawson City in central Yukon had a grey-furred raccoon skin hat over her head, the tail of which was tucked in under her regiment's tree-and-crossed woodsman's axes hat badge over her left temple.

"The hats are enspelled to make them appear to be tan berets to normal people, Kasumi-san," Yonaga cautioned. "Hai, the Canadians — as well as their cousins from Australia and New Zealand — are the best prepared of all magicals for the time when that stupid secrecy statute comes down once and for all, but you can't ask any self-respecting Forester to NOT wear such a hat. It would be like asking one of the Corps of Air Cavalry to not wear their buff gold berets...!"

Kasumi croaked. " _ **DON'T TALK ABOUT THOSE MONSTERS, YOIKO-SAN!**_ "

As she collapsed into a heap of tears on the street, Yonaga gaped at her...before a polite cough made her turn to see a young lieutenant in the Foresters standing there, a sympathetic smile on his face. "You have to be careful about mentioning our sister corps to Lieutenant Akatsuka, Captain Itō," he said with a wink. "She was at Operation: Ten-gō escorting your sister to Okinawa. The Sixth and Seventh Air Cavalry Brigades helped Task Force 58 put a stop to that useless attack."

"How many regiments?"

"Six. The first and second regiments of the Fifth and Sixth Canadian Cavalry, the Second Algoma Regiment and the Frontenac Regiment." The lieutenant then smiled. "I'll note that the Rocky Mountain Dragoons — they perpetuate the Second of the Fifth Cavalry — refused to bear the battle honour 'Yamato' on their guidon. The people who flew for that regiment in the war in that battle thought the attack was nothing more than simple murder." With a nod to Kasumi, he headed off.

Yonaga nodded in approval as Kasumi gaped in shock at that revelation...

* * *

 _ **Near Kagoshima in Kyūshū, the site of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School, that moment...**_

"Mic-check! Mic-check! Mic-check! This is Kirishima for Sasebo Actual."

« _ **Kirishima, this is Sasebo Actual, Jintsū here.**_ »

"Am at the site of 'M.C. High', Junko-san," Kirishima said as she walked down the rubble-strewn pathway that split apart the campus, leading from the destroyed stone bridge that connected the island to the mainland a kilometre away. With the fourth of the Kongō-class fast battleships at this time was her older sister Hiei, plus American destroyers Kidd, Bullard, Black and Chauncey; when they had learned what had been discovered about the school here, the four Fletcher-class veterans of Destroyer Division 96 raced down here at flank speed from Sasebo to scout the terrain before the two battleships came here. "The whole school's wrecked. By the looks of it, Tosa-san was here along with her escorts sometime ago. The craters all indicate 41 centimetre 45 calibre Third Year naval rifles were used at this place." She shook her head as she tried to conceive of what the Abyssal-possessed lead ship of her class of super-dreadnought wanted with a school of relatively normal students.

« _ **Understood, Isabel-san. John's listening in, as is Admiral Gotō**_ ,» the second of the Sendai-class light cruisers replied from Sasebo. « _ **Any sign of anyone Yui-san and Yūko-san might have missed when they moved to evacuate the school?**_ »

"Negative..."

"Hello, there."

Kirishima blinked, then she turned...

...before blinking again on seeing the smiling teenage boy about the same age as Moroboshi Ataru standing there.

She was quick to note that his kind, welcoming look wasn't reflected in his glazed-over eyes.

"Correction, Junko-san. We found another victim," Kirishima reported.

« _ **Understood, Isabel-san. Don't try to provoke this one, alright.**_ »

"Understood." She then smiled as she slipped off her glasses, making Hiei gasp in shock as a serene look crossed her younger sister's face. Flanking her to both sides, the two Fletcher-class destroyers known to close friends as Irene Kidd and Hunter Black tensed, though they kept their main armament splayed away from this poor kid. "Hello there," the fourth of the Kongō-class battleships then hailed as she slowly approached the young man. "I'm Isabel. What's your name?"

He blinked before he smiled. "Keisuke. I'm Keisuke. Would you like to have sex with me, Isabel-san?" he asked, making her eyes instantly dance down to gaze upon a rather large tent forming over his groin. "I'm very good at doing that."

"Oh, Keisuke-kun. Do we have visitors?"

The shipgirls' heads snapped to their north...

...before they gaped on seeing the group of twenty nurses standing there.

In uniforms that seemed more perfect for a soapland fantasy or an adult film version of a hospital than a real place of healing.

"Oh, ye gods! Have mercy...!" Hiei croaked out.

« _ **How bad is it, Sarah?**_ » John Richardson demanded from Sasebo.

The second of the Kongō-class battleships chuckled. "Remember the story I told you about that captain that was dismissed from duty two years ago for trying to trick Kiko-chan and Otsune-chan into taking them to bed, John?"

« _ **That bad?**_ »

"About five times worse," Hiei deadpanned.

« _ **Oh, ye gods...!**_ » Gotō Kiichi moaned from Yokosuka.

« _ **Hang on tight, girls**_ ,» a new voice then cut in. « _ **I'm just getting a phoenix.**_ »

"Hurry, Jane-sensei!" Kirishima stated...

...before her radar picked up on something surging out of the Ariake Sea behind her, making her gasp as she turned around.

"Ah! Tomomi-san and her friends just came to visit!" Keisuke's sister said with a delighted smile as she pointed out to sea...

...just as four tall and powerful Abyssal humanoids surged out from the water to stand erect, now about fifty metres from shore, their weapons out yet not coming to bear on the two battleships and four destroyers on the island.

" _ **Tosa**_...!" Hiei hissed on seeing the Battleship Princess of the East China Sea that once nearly killed her, she now accompanied by three battlecruisers that would have been instantly recognized by the leader of the Kidō Butai...!

"Ah! Tomomi-san! Tokiko-san! Minako-san! Akemi-san!"

That was Keisuke, who was jogging over to the beach, waving in delight as the four dark sea spirits sailed calmly ashore, clearly not bothered by the fact that a small force of shipgirls was on the island nearby. " _ **Keisuke-san!**_ " Tosa called out as she waved back, a grin that reminded Kirishima and Hiei of the few times they had seen Kaga truly delighted about something crossing her pale face. " _ **Minna-san! We brought some food and provisions for you all from Saishū-do!**_ "

The shipgirls all blanched. " _ **Cheju-do**_...?!" Hiei hissed out.

"This is so not good!" Black snarled as Kidd drew her cutlass in preparation for a close-in fight. "All the Korean shipgirls are going to go ballistic once they find out these creeps have been stealing food from the people of Cheju-do!"

" _ **There was no theft, young destroyer.**_ "

That was battlecruiser Tōgasa, the former name ship of the Amagi-class and Akagi's younger sister by date of the laying of her keel at Kōbe. Formerly known as Tennō Heika Gunkan _Amagi_ , she had been renamed in honour of the oldest volcano on the Izu Peninsula to prevent confusion with the Unryū-class aircraft carrier launched in 1943; since the older Amagi had yet to be summoned at the time, it was seen as alright to do that. When Amagi/Tōgasa came back as Tosa's primary battlecruiser escort three years ago, she tried to lash out at Yokosuka in response to such an insult on her "honour". That was at the time the British battlecruiser Hood had been visiting Japan after helping escort a convoy over the top of Eurasia. Fresh out of her Mark II upgrade that made the only Admiral-class warship a true fast battleship on an even bigger scale than even the Kongō girls, Hood totally thrashed Tōgasa, chasing her off with serious hull damage and wrecked weapons while taking some damage in return, requiring a month-long lay-up in Yokosuka before returning to Portsmouth. That earned Hood both the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross from Her Majesty the Queen and the third class Order of the Rising Sun from the Heavenly Sovereign.

"I refuse to believe that, Tōgasa-san," Kirishima snarled.

That made the pale battlecruiser growl. " _ **DON'T CALL ME THAT!**_ "

"Do we need to bring Hood-san over here to teach you another lesson?" Hiei then teased. "She's almost ready to get her Mark III upgrade. Which means that she'll be shipping _**Harpoons**_! Doubt your armour could withstand THAT!"

" _ **Enough, Tokiko. Sarah's goading you. Don't let it bother you.**_ "

That was Tosa, who was now allowing Keisuke and her sister to embrace her from both sides. Much to the surprise of the shipgirls, the battleship princess had dispersed all her rigging on coming ashore, which most Abyssals worth their salt would NEVER do, especially on territory they didn't hold. An amused smile was on her face as she gazed upon the older battlecruisers-turned-fast battleships who had come down to scout this island. " _ **I take it that young crystal-blood girl who was one of the students here managed to evacuate the students and staff who were hurt by that perverted monster whose grandfather served in Unit 731, Isabel?**_ " the darker version of the first of her class of battleships then asked.

Hiei looked confused. "'Crystal-blood'?"

"She means Arisugawa Yui, Sarah."

The shipgirls gasped before they spun around...

...then they relaxed on seeing Lady Jane standing there, a displeased look on her face as she seemed to tense for action. Like her sister and friends in the First Canadian Battleship Squadron, the second of the Lady Elgin-class had the worn features and grey-shot hair that marked her near-century and more of service as an actual warship before being transformed into a shipgirl. She had an aristocratic look on her face, with dark blue eyes like twin amethyst jewels and her wavy dark brown hair styled in something that seemed more befitting for a lady of the Roaring Twenties than a modern girl or someone older. Dressed in the normal dark skinsuit all her kind wore, that over black-trimmed blue sea boots, she also had a black naval combat dress jacket slung over her, that bearing epaulettes displaying her rank of navy captain in gold thread over her ship's name in white on a blue field, bordered by ship's rope with three gold maple leaves at the base and the Commonwealth naval crown at the top.

And she had her wand out.

Seeing her, Tosa smiled as she protectively hugged her frequent lovers closer to her. " _ **Ah, one of the famous Ryūseizen**_ ," the battleship princess said with a smile that was both admiring and condemning. " _ **You stink of the blood of all your crew who sacrificed themselves to make you what you are, no different than what that freak carrier now in Nerima experienced thanks to the one of your sisters named after a stinking**_ **American** _ **of all things!**_ " she then leered out. As the normal shipgirls gasped on hearing that revelation, the transformed first of her class of super-dreadnought asked, " _ **How does it feel to know how much people sacrificed to make you what you are now, Lady Jane? Named for a noble and decent woman, built for an honourable cause, then drenched in the blood of your own crew because those idiots in 'W' Division didn't see us coming until it was too late and they were nearly bled dry! They should have turned it over to the Royal Canadian Foresters right away instead of throwing their lives away in useless banzai charges at Halifax and Victoria...**_ "

She then stopped on seeing an amused look cross the older shipgirl's face. "If that is meant to get me angry, you have to do much better than that, Miss Fujita," Lady Jane then said as her dark blue eyes sparkled with something inhuman...

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, that moment...**_

"Look at her, Kiichi."

"What do you mean, John?" Gotō Kiichi asked from Yokosuka.

John Richardson sat back in his chair, sipping his coffee. "Any officer worth his salt would consider his career made to command a ship like that," the one-star in charge of America's naval support to Japan said as he shook his head. "Were her crew in the world wars just as calm as she is today? Even if I cringe at the idea of her crew doing the same thing that Captain Itō's crew did to change her into a shipgirl, you'd have to be the luckiest bastard alive to be a captain in charge of that!"

"Agreed," Gotō replied before the faint sound of tea being sipped echoed over the communications links. "Still, there is hope."

"Kiichi-ssi, I can get a destroyer squadron over there as quick as possible to help out," came a new voice from the Korean naval base at Chinhae near Pusan, which was just a little over two hundred kilometres to the northeast of Sasebo on the southern shore of South Kyŏngsang Province. "Yakcho's division is on the south side of Tsu-shima and could be there in four hours just in case Tosa has a backup fleet moving to interdict the convoys between Pusan and Shimonoseki."

"Hold off on that, Yujin-san," Gotō cautioned. "Lady Jane has seniority. Let her decide if reinforcements are necessary."

Hearing that, the leader of the United Korean Republic's shipgirl corps — most of whom were actually former Imperial Japanese Navy warships that never were built — breathed out. "I don't like this," Rear Admiral Son Yujin then warned.

"No one should like it, Yujin-a," Richardson warned.

Dry chuckles echoed over the radio waves...

* * *

 _ **Near Kagoshima...**_

"What do you want, Tomomi?" Lady Jane asked, the magic in her voice ringing loudly in the ears of the other shipgirls, making them pay rapt attention to what she said. As she tried to keep her own mind and stay judgmental, Kirishima was quick to notice that the four Abyssals — the three battlecruisers who had accompanied Tosa to this place had also gained a pair of giggling nurse companions, they hugging Akagi's sisters with a tsunami of devotion — were also locked on the Canadian super-battleship's words. "I've watched you since you manifested yourself in your current form five years ago. You've been quite the destructive little creature since that time...and yet, starting two years ago, you changed." As the other shipgirls stared in confusion at her, the second of the Lady Elgin-class nodded at Matsuda Keisuke and her sister Sawako. "They changed it for you, didn't they? You came here intent on destroying this 'stain' to Japan's honour; after all, Roman Catholics are loyal to the Pope, not the Heavenly Sovereign. Yet, thanks to a scientist descent of one of Unit 731's researchers..."

"He was your first time, wasn't he?" Hiei asked, her own dark blue eyes widening in horror. "Did he rape you, Tomomi-san?"

Tosa jolted on hearing such a harsh question before she gazed upon Keisuke. Thinking about it for a moment, she then shook her head. " _ **No, Sarah, it was mutual**_ ," she said as she reached up to gently ruffle his hair as he gazed warmly into her eyes. Seeing that, Lady Jane was quick to note a deep flash of true consciousness in those dark brown orbs. " _ **We came here to destroy this place as you just surmised, Jane-sensei. But it was at a time when one of their school-wide orgies was going on; someone had rung the school bell and all their inhibitions were wiped out in an instant. Before I understood what was going on, I was seduced by a half-dozen of them.**_ " Her eyes — which were starting to shift in colour from an Abyssal's normal glowing red to the copper-brown that her sister possessed — softened in delight as his hand gently slipped into her flowing black skirt to get at the sinful delights underneath. As both Black and Kidd blushed on seeing something so lewd in public, Tosa gently kissed his forehead. " _ **The next time I came, he took my maidenhead and made me a woman.**_ "

"Do you have a child?" Kirishima demanded.

Tosa chuckled. " _ **No, Isabel. But that is in the cards.**_ " Her eyes then hardened. " _ **Where are the others, Jane-sensei?**_ "

"Safe in Nerima and under Yoiko's watch," Lady Jane stated. "I'll take your parole and your friends' parole. Since you clearly came here to help these people, you can be accepted as 'allied' Abyssals despite your past actions."

That made the battleship princess perk as she stared at the second of the Lady Elgin-class before her face softened again...

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka...**_

"Teitoku, does she have the authority to do that?!" Ōyodo demanded.

"She does, Commander Kobayashi."

Eyes locked on the middle-aged, sandy-haired man in the CADPAT uniform seated before Gotō Kiichi's desk. A lieutenant colonel's crown-and-Vimy star insignia was on the epaulette on the front of his jacket, that over the regimental identifier **RCF**. A brown-furred coonskin cap was on the desk nearby. As Ōyodo's sister Niiyodo handed Kenneth Bolton, the commanding officer of "W" Commando, a cup of welcome tea, the native of Whitehorse added, "Unlike many Abyssals, the Ladies Fujita are actual shipgirl spirits who were corrupted by the darkness to become what they are today. After young Negi discovered the spells that brought the Commanders Chihaya back to duty as shipgirls, magicals from across the Eight Commanderies tried the same process to get the Rengō Kantai back on their feet and into the fight as quickly as possible." As the two light cruisers smiled on hearing how much their local magical friends had gladly pitched in to expand on what the son of the Thousand Master had done five years ago that had saved so many, Bolton added, "We think that those who tried to bring the Ladies Fujita back...botched it. Given how those girls were treated when the Washington Treaty was signed...!"

Gotō Kiichi shook his head. "Does Jane-sensei have the power to heal them, Colonel? Anna-san and Kei-san suffer a lot because of what happened to their sisters. Given Yoiko-san is back now, her reaction could be...violent."

Ōyodo coughed. "'Violent'...?"

Bolton smirked as Gotō fired his logistics chief an exasperated look and Niiyodo giggled. "Oh, she can. Given what the lads in 'A' Commando are reporting now from Hogwarts, it's best that Captain Smith handles this issue. If the last host of the Earth Angel gets involved, it'll get very ugly, very quickly." As the others in the room perked on hearing him say that, Bolton sighed as he sipped his tea, nodding his thanks to Niiyodo. "Right now, his darker side is out to play. And the Death Eaters just got the chance to experience what dealing with a Class Five-X metahuman is all about...before they were placed inside Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren at Her Pleasure for all their many crimes against sentients in the United Kingdom."

"Harry-chan won't be threatened by them anymore?" Niiyodo then asked. A near-twin of her sister, the woman known to her friends as Kobayashi Nayoko was one of the shipgirls at Yokosuka who was very close to the orphaned young wizard.

"Hopefully not, Lieutenant," Bolton answered before he sipped his tea, then he sat back in his chair. "With the main group of them now in 'A' Block at Gonebren, all that are left are stragglers like those lunar therianthropes Commander Dreyer and her sisters dealt with in Hogsmeade last night, just before they met Captain Harlan. With what we suspect will happen soon to _Minister_ Fudge..." — all the people in the room were quick to sense the derision in the Canadian magical warrior's voice on saying that title for the current leader of Britain's wand magicals — "...whatever hopes any of Voldemort's fools who've escaped justice to date will have in staying free and safe will be completely dashed. We'll be helping along, of course."

"If I understand Canadian law correctly, you people normally wouldn't have those type of responsibilities in another nation, even if it is Britain, Colonel," John Richardson noted from Sasebo. "How can you get away with that?"

A chuckle answered him. "It's called 'NATO', Admiral."

Hearing that made Gotō and Richardson both laugh...

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, that moment...**_

" _ **GREAT MERLIN! WHAT ARE THESE THINGS DOING HERE?!**_ "

Hearing that outraged shout through his office window from the area of the main courtyard close to the landing for the boats that took freshmen students to the Great Hall on the first night, Albus Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, it comes at last," he said as he stood up, then gazed upon his guests, all of whom seemed more relaxed now. "Please stay here, ladies. I can handle the minister and whatever entourage that came with him. No doubt, we can settle the issue about young Harry today."

"Then I best come with you, Professor," Nagato stated as she set aside her shot glass. "I want to have words with the idiots who think they could defy the likes of Marshal Yomigawa when they passed that stupid law concerning MY son!"

"I best accompany you then," Lady Elgin said as she calmly stood. Allowing Fawkes to flutter off her shoulder to perch himself now on Musashi's head, the first of her class of magical battleship added, "Even if the staleblood idiots that are hell-bent on running this poor country into the ground don't really like the idea of what happened to my sister and my friends, I do possess a lot more moral weight among the local magicals than any normal shipgirl would. And you are a little tipsy, Reiko."

"Pah! I'm not drunk enough to NOT be able to deal with these hidebound dinosaurs, Elaine-san!"

Warspite laughed. "Oh, that's the spirit, Reiko! I'll come along with you!"

"Me, too!" Iowa volunteered. "Hold the fort here, Dragon!"

"Have fun, old lady!" New Jersey leered.

The blonde namesake of the Hawkeye State jolted. "HEY!"

With an amused chuckle, the elderly headmaster walked out of the office and began to make his way down to the courtyard, the battleships right on his backside. Much that he now found himself sympathizing a little bit with good men such as Gotō Kiichi, William Cunningham, Drake Harlan and their peers, he always enjoyed dealing with shipgirls. The living personifications of THOUSANDS of brave lads who had gone to sea in ships to fight for their nations against the hated foes in wars no magical could ever imagine, they were the living symbols of all that was good about normal people. Despite all the dire warnings from mugalophobes in the Ministry about the shipgirls — screams that would become far less given what just happened to Dolores Umbridge at the hands of Lady Elgin's squadron flagship — more and more magicals in the British Isles had picked up on the wonderful nature of these beautiful nymphs who gladly fought to save all from the ravages of the Abyss. As their voices in support of the war effort grew and grew, it would help drive the growing movement among British wand-magicals to prepare for the day that the Statute of Secrecy would be seen as no longer necessary and all could be united as one nation.

He just hoped that normal leaders wouldn't react too harshly when the veil of secrecy finally came down...

Reaching the main courtyard, Dumbledore smirked on seeing a quaking Cornelius Fudge sputtering something incoherent at the gathered shipgirls of the Eighth Escort Group, the Canadian Atlantic Fleet's most successful fighting formation in the current war. Of course, Saint Catharines and her sisters and friends were calmly eating chocolate, no doubt gifted to them by Jean Southern on their trip to Hogwarts from London. Also present were Lucius Malfoy and several of his fellows who once fought under Voldemort, though their magic seemed to be quite normal as their auras revealed to Dumbledore's mage sight. Also there were Malcolm Parkinson and Cyrus Greengrass, neither of whom had fought with Voldemort. _So they all did repent deep down_ , Dumbledore mused to himself as Malcolm looked his way, they exchanging courteous nods. Unlike Lucius, Pansy Parkinson's father was more neutral in his political outlook, though he vigorously defended all traditional forms of magic.

No doubt, he didn't get the story of what Yomigawa Tsukiko had done for Harry.

Easily corrected...

"...arrested! I want these things off the castle grounds...!"

Saint Catharines gave Fudge an annoyed look. "Oi!" the namesake of the Garden City of Ontario then snapped. "You with the bad hat taste! Cool it with the verbal diarrhea! We're enjoying some morning snacks here!"

Fudge gargled on hearing that slap-down from the thirty-first of the Canadian-built River-class frigates by pendant number, then he blustered. "Now see here, you stupid muggle golem!" he spat out, which made even Lucius gape in shock at him at such an insult escaping the minister's lips. "You have no right to tell me anything! I am the Minister of Magic...!"

"Minister FOR Magic, you staleblood idiot!" Crowland snapped, making him gargle on hearing that insult. "By the way, the proper title is 'Her Majesty's Minister for Magic'! So say it right and stop giving us earaches, you fool!"

"How dare you say that muggle woman commands...!"

" _ **NOW SEE HERE, SIR!**_ "

Dumbledore tried not to smirk as Warspite stormed over, her own battle aura bright as her blue eyes burned with outrage. Before the second of the Queen Elizabeth-class could snare the minister by the neck and string him up on her own yardarm, Lady Elgin gently cleared her throat. "Marquess Malfoy," she then politely greeted, making Lucius turn to stare wide-eyed at her. "Earl Parkinson. Earl Greengrass. Viscount Crabbe. Viscount Goyle. Viscount Nott. A merry morning to all of you this beautiful day," she then added with a bow of her head. "I trust your children are enjoying themselves at this fine old castle."

Malcolm's dark grey eyes sparkled with delight as he returned her bow. "Lady Captain Harlan, a merry morning to thee as well. Indeed, my daughter has truly enjoyed her time here for her first year at school. What brings you here today?"

As Fudge sputtered on noting that one of his primary backers was now speaking politely to one of the Canadian magical battleships, Lady Elgin shrugged, a wan smile on her face. "Sadly, those who still follow the ways of that arch-traitor of Magic young Marquess Potter's mother was so willing to properly dispose of a decade ago decided to be a nuisance here last night. It was dealt with by fellow veterans of the Second Battle of Dogger Bank on the normal side." As several of the magicals there caught the reference to Orion and her sisters, the elder of her class of battleships added, "After the Earth Angel dispersed that creature's spirit once and for all time yesterday when he was discovered to be possessing poor Professor Quirrel..."

" _ **LORD THINGY IS DEAD!**_ " Fudge shrieked.

"WAIT!" Cyrus exclaimed. "The Dark Lord was HERE?!"

"Indeed he was, Cyrus," Dumbledore cut in, an apologetic look on his face. "Sadly, we just confirmed he also experimented with ebony mesonium during his reign of terror; that's what helped keep his spirit in this life even after Lily destroyed his body after she sacrificed herself to save her son. Lady Negako picked up on it right away when she came to cleanse the north field of the magical residue from the Battle of Hogwarts in 1943, then when she sensed Voldemort within Quirinus' body..."

He shook his head. "If the Earth Angel dealt with the Dark Lord, then he's truly gone!" Mason Nott declared. He was an older version of his son Theodore, bearing the visible mental scars of being a widow too young in his life; his wife Isabel died of viral wizarding flu two years after their son came into this world. "We should be glad of it! Is young Harry alright, Headmaster?! Given that scar of his was 'gifted' to him by the Dark Lord, can we be sure he's truly free of the man's influence?"

"Negako-sama ensured it was cleansed from my son, Nott-dono," Nagato stated.

" _ **YOU ARE NOT HIS MOTHER!**_ " Fudge exclaimed.

" _ **CORNELIUS!**_ " Lucius snapped. "That's NOT the way to treat an honoured guest of this nation!" As Fudge gaped in shock at him, the patriarch of the Malfoy Clan of Avebury bowed apologetically to the Japanese battleship. Despite his act of contrition, Nagato was quick to see the calculation in his eyes. "Lady Nagato, my deepest apologies for my friend's behaviour!" He took a deep breath. "Please understand that our actions concerning Harry were not meant to insult your taking him away from those horrid muggles Professor Dumbledore was forced to chose as his guardians after the Dark Lord killed his parents. We..."

"You believed that he was not being properly prepared to take his place among you and your peers in the House of Lords Wizengamot," Nagato stated. As Lucius sent her a look of respect at her willingness to match him in this particular field and the other shipgirls all smirked at her ability to verbally duel with such a man, she added, "More than understandable, Malfoy-dono. Applaudable, even. Given how you must feel besieged these days because of how much the Abyssals hurt your society before we came to help save you five years ago, that is understandable." Her eyes narrowed. "Please understand in turn that Yomigawa-gensui was quite respectful of the proper method by which I magically adopted Harry as my son. She even went so far as to petition the Crown directly about this — which you are answerable to in the end as written in your Separation Act — and did the ceremony at _**Stonehenge**_." She tried not to smirk on seeing the eyes of Fudge's supporters all brighten in delight on hearing that declaration. "If you wish, we can make use of Professor Dumbledore's pensieve and I can show you those memories. Not to mention his own as he was witness to the ceremony himself in his position as Chief Warlock."

That made Lucius and his friends all gape in disbelief at such a statement. Sadly, it hadn't sunk into the minister. "Enough of this!" Fudge snapped. "Tsukuyomi had no right to do that! Neither did you, Dumbledore! Harry is going to stay here...!"

" **Excuse me.** "

Everyone jolted on hearing that metal-tinged voice, then they turned...

...to see a glowing figure in black-and-gunmetal grey now standing nearby, he accompanied by the third of the Littorio-class battleships, the one that many magicals across the Continent gladly called the "Nundu Slayer". As shudders of open fear quaked the bodies of the people who had once fought under Voldemort on seeing this living modern representation of the Avalonians' god of death, Moroboshi Ataru focused his eyes on Fudge, who looked ready to soil himself. " **Oh, dear** ," the transformed tag race champion said with a mocking smirk in his echoing voice. " **You'll all done for, Fudge.** "

" _ **WHAT?!**_ " Fudge croaked.

Ataru gazed on Dumbledore. " **Professor Dumbledore, please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a sitting Minister for Magic always have to present himself or herself to the Queen within a year of his being elected by the Wizengamot?** "

"Indeed you're right, dear boy. Paragraph 91 of the Separation Act demands that."

" **With permanent loss of magic the price one pays for such defiance of the Crown, correct?** "

"Indeed so, my friend."

Ataru then focused on Fudge, who was now as white as a sheet on hearing such a thing that was contained within the basic law of the land, which all British magicals were expected to obey. " **Enjoy being a nimmib, fool** ," the transformed tag race champion said as he offered his arm to Roma, who gladly slipped her arm around his before they headed to the Great Hall.

Lady Elgin trilled, "As a matter of fact..."

A burst of magic then seemed to explode from Fudge, causing all his friends to automatically back away as the minister screamed out in pain before he collapsed to the flagstone deck of the courtyard. As Thorlock and Merrittonia moved to render first aide to the gasping man, Lady Elgin's eyes narrowed. "Did you expect us to forgive? Much less forget?" she growled.

She turned away to head to the Great Hall. As shouts from the other Canadian shipgirls echoed over the scene, Dumbledore sighed as he gave Lucius a knowing look. "Try to choose better this time, Lucius, please," the headmaster quietly asked.

"We'll keep that in mind, Albus," the patriarch of the Malfoy Clan of Avebury promised...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Scheiß!** — Shit!; **Nostromo** — Boatswain; **Senato Magico** — Magical Senate, Italy's version of the Wizengamot; **Nozzer** — Nickname for a fresh recruit of the Royal Navy, most likely taken from the slurred way of saying "No, sir!"; **Meine Damen und Herren** — Literally "my ladies and lords", the German way of saying "Ladies and gentlemen"; **Mignotte di sanguemorto** — Literally "dead blood whores", this combines a very nasty Italian profanity with the concept of blood that bears no life (and no magic), which is the rough equivalent of the German "Leicheblut schweinhund"; **Magonò** — The Italian word for "squib" as shown in local translations of the _Harry Potter_ novels; **Flugzeugträger** — Aircraft carrier; **Bahnhof** — Railway station; **Großersee** — Great Lake; **Gruppenkommandeur** — Group commander; **Todesser** — Death Eater; **Pfefferschnaps** — Pepper schnapps, the German equivalent of firewhisky; **Hässliche** — Damn; **Einheit 731** — Unit 731; **Königlichen Kanadisches Korps der Luftkavallerie** — Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry; **Lieber Gott** — Dear God; **TKK** — Short for **T'ong'il Konghwaguk Kumham** ("Warship of the United Republic"), the ship prefix for Korean warships in this story; **-a** — Korean suffix honorific equivalent to the Japanese "-chan" with names ending in consonants (with vowel-ending names, it's " **-ya** "); **CADPAT** — Canadian Disruptive Pattern, the digital-designed camouflage pattern for combat clothing in the Canadian Armed Forces; **Rengō Kantai** — Combined Fleet.

The **Dharmachakra** (literally "wheel of the Dharma") is a symbol of several Indian religious movements, Buddhism being one. To those who follow the path of the Buddha, the Dharmachakra depicts the eternal cycle of life, matter and existence (as well as rebirth) known as **saṃsāra**. The Wheel is used by Buddhists to also depict the **Noble Eight-fold Path** ( **āryāṣṭāṅgamārga** ), the basic way of evolving oneself spiritually to break free of the cycle of saṃsāra and achieve **nirvāṇa**.

The **Sacred Order of Befana** (in Italian, _Sacro Ordine della Befana_ ), the Republic's version of the Order of Merlin, is named in tribute to **Befana** , a witch from Tuscany during the Twelfth Century who both fought against evil and helped heal people from plagues regardless if the victims were magical or normal...and in real life, is the Italian folk equivalent to Santa Claus, who visits children on the night of Epiphany Eve (5 January). In the universe of my stories, the order was established by the Margrave of Tuscany and blessed by Pope Innocent III (hence the title "Sacred"). Like the other magical orders introduced in this story, it is divided into three levels (with Order of Merlin post-nominal letters to indicate the actual ranking):

MO1 — **Commander of the Sacred Order of Befana** (in Italian, _Comandante del Sacro Ordine della Befana_ )  
MO2 — **Officer of the Sacred Order of Befana** ( _Ufficiale del Sacro Ordine di Befana_ )  
MO3 — **Knight of the Sacred Order of Befana** ( _Cavaliere del Sacro Ordine della Befana_ )

Note that I give local names to all thirty-six **Castle-class corvettes** that were ordered to be built in Canadian yards yet were cancelled due to changes of naval warfare; **HMCS** _ **Simcoe**_ ( **Katherine Simcoe** ) is one of them. The names of those ships as I created for them are listed below, along with their pendant numbers and their original British names:

K460 — **HMCS Chatham** (ex-HMS _Aydon Castle_ )  
K461 — **HMCS Newcastle** (ex-HMS _Barnwell Castle_ )  
K462 — **NCSM Cookshire** (ex-HMS _Beeston Castle_ )  
K463 — **HMCS Montague** (ex-HMS _Bodiam Castle_ )  
K464 — **HMCS Markham** (ex-HMS _Bolton Castle_ )  
K465 — **HMCS Clarington** (ex-HMS _Bowes Castle_ )  
K466 — **HMCS Aldershot** (ex-HMS _Bramber Castle_ )  
K467 — **HMCS Mount Pearl** (ex-HMS _Bridgnorth Castle_ )  
K468 — **HMCS Mississauga** (ex-HMS _Brough Castle_ )  
K469 — **NCSM Bouctouche** (ex-HMS _Canterbury Castle_ )  
K470 — **HMCS Argyle** (ex-HMS _Carew Castle_ )  
K471 — **HMCS Ts'il-os** (ex-HMS _Chepstow Castle_ )  
K472 — **NCSM Eaton** (ex-HMS _Chester Castle_ )  
K473 — **HMCS Iqaluit** (ex-HMS _Christchurch Castle_ )  
K474 — **NCSM Saint-Émile** (ex-HMS _Clare Castle_ )  
K475 — **NCSM Waterville** (ex-HMS _Clavering Castle_ )  
K476 — **HMCS Manan** (ex-HMS _Clitheroe Castle_ )  
K477 — **HMCS Grand Falls** (ex-HMS _Clun Castle_ )  
K478 — **NCSM Stanstead** (ex-HMS _Colchester Castle_ )  
K479 — **HMCS Kangiqliniq** (ex-HMS _Corfe Castle_ )  
K480 — **HMCS Kindersley** (ex-HMS _Cornet Castle_ )  
K481 — **HMCS Churchill** (ex-HMS _Cowes Castle_ )  
K482 — **HMCS Richibucto** (ex-HMS _Cowling Castle_ )  
K483 — **HMCS Leduc** (ex-HMS _Criccieth Castle_ )  
K484 — **HMCS Simcoe** (ex-HMS _Cromer Castle_ )  
K500 — **HMCS Steinbach** (ex-HMS _Devizes Castle_ )  
K501 — **HMCS Airdrie** (ex-HMS _Dunster Castle_ )  
K502 — **HMCS Caledon** (ex-HMS _Egremont Castle_ )  
K503 — **HMCS Hartland** (ex-HMS _Fotheringhay Castle_ )  
K504 — **HMCS Vaughan** (ex-HMS _Helmsley Castle_ )  
K505 — **HMCS Tilbury** (ex-HMS _Malling Castle_ )  
K506 — **HMCS Thompson** (ex-HMS _Malmesbury Castle_ )  
K507 — **HMCS Whitby** (ex-HMS _Raby Castle_ )  
K508 — **HMCS Rustico** (ex-HMS _Trematon Castle_ )  
K509 — **HMCS Inuvik** (ex-HMS _Tutbury Castle_ )  
K510 — **HMCS Cloverdale** (ex-HMS _Wigmore Castle_ )

The **Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry** ( **RCCAC** ) (in French, le **Corps Canadien Royal de la Cavalerie Aérienne** [ **CCRCA** ]) is my creation; this formation doesn't exist in real life. Please refer to my story _**The Air Cavalry Regiments of Canada**_ at the Fiction Press website under my pen name to read more about them. Also note that in the universe of my stories, famous British aircraft designer **Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith** (1888-1989) migrated to Canada after the collapse of his company in England in 1920. The **Sopwith Canada So-48 Camel II** and its power plant as noted here is my invention as well. For everyone's personal information, the Camel II physically resembles a slightly larger version of the **Sopwith F1 Camel** from World War One with only one wing, retractable undercarriage, enclosed bubble canopy and a slight sweptback forward edge to the wing. It is a fully multi-role fighter with the ability to carry a considerable bomb load and even could carry torpedoes; this is why it is given the British designation **FTA4** (Fighter/Torpedo/Attack No. 4) in this story.

 **TKK Yakcho** ( **Hyŏng Yunsŏ** ) mentioned here is the Yūgumo-class destroyer **THG** _ **Wakashio**_ (AKA Warship No. 5048). One of the latter members of that class (known as the "Kai Yūgumo-class") which was cancelled in November of 1943, Wakashio was summoned by accident by a Korean shaman in **Chinhae** , the main base of the Republic of Korea Navy near Pusan. Because of multiple issues on both sides of the East Sea, she and her sisters were granted leave by the Heavenly Sovereign to serve Korea. Her name "Yakcho" is the local reading of the Chinese characters in her Japanese name **若潮** , which literally means "young tide". Because of this, Yakcho has both a Korean and a Japanese name; her Japanese name is **Kumasaka Wakana**.

And the list of shipgirls introduced or mentioned in this chapter:

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **HMCS Warrior** — Freida Lavina Houghton  
 **HMCS Magnificent** — Alicia Glenda Boulton  
 **NCSM Bonaventure** — Jeanne-Marie Claudette O'Brien  
 **HMCS Nabob** — Holly Nancy Lay  
 **HMCS Puncher** — Roberta Eleanor Shannon Bidwell

 _Sixth Canadian Destroyer Squadron "Double Sixes" (CANDESRON SIX)  
_ **HMCS Ottawa (D60)** — Jane Alberta MacDonald  
 **HMCS Algonquin** — Susan Xanadu Piers  
 **HMCS Assiniboine** — Carla Erica Caslon  
 **NCSM Gatineau** — Hortense Josephine Cartier  
 **HMCS Columbia** — Shawna Helen O'Brien  
 **HMCS Saskatchewan** — Clara Hollanda Finch-Noyes

 _Eighth Canadian Escort Group "Canal Mob" (CANESCGRU EIGHT)  
_ **HMCS Saint Catharines** — Antonia Fern Pickard  
 **HMCS Crowland** — Wilma Hannah Merritt  
 **HMCS Port Colborne** — Maude Faye Oliver  
 **HMCS Fort Erie** — Ashley Willow Ford  
 **HMCS Trillium** — Ronalda Freida Harris  
 **HMCS Oakville** — Ashley Calliope Jones  
 **HMCS Brantford** — Wendy Dana Faye Johnston  
 **HMCS Dundas** — Rhonda Willow Draney  
 **HMCS Thorlock** — Jeanne Eugenie Francois  
 **HMCS Merrittonia** — Francine Kelley Ellis  
 **HMCS Humberstone** — Helen Allie Boucher  
 **HMCS Tillsonburg** — Alberta Dorothy Ritchie  
 **HMCS Simcoe** — Katherine Henrietta Simcoe  
 **HMCS Burlington** — Martha Jean Frickner

 _ **ITALY  
**_ **MM Littorio** — Giovanna Ansaldo  
 **MM Vittorio Veneto** — Vittoria Ansaldo  
 **MM Imperio** — Irene Ansaldo  
 **MM Libeccio** — Lucrezia Alighieri

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Jun'yō** — Kakuta Junko  
 **THG Kitakami** — Kumamoto Kiko  
 **THG Ōi** — Kumamoto Otsune  
 **THG Tosa** — Fujita Tomomi  
 **THG Tōgasa** (ex-THG Amagi) — Fujita Tokiko  
 **THG Minako** (ex-THG Atago) — Fujita Minako  
 **THG Ashitaka** (ex-THG Takao) — Fujita Akemi  
 **THG Amagi** — Komura Ami  
 **THG Niiyodo** — Kobayashi Nayoko

 _ **KOREA  
**_ **TKK Yakcho** (ex-THG Wakashio) — Hyŏng Yunsŏ (Kumasaka Wakana)

 _ **UNITED KINGDOM  
**_ **HMS Ark Royal** — Amy Joan Power

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Sable** — Wanda Kennedy Berner  
 **USS Wolverine** — Jennifer Raye Fairlamb  
 **USS Kidd** — Irene Caroline Kidd  
 **USS Bullard** — Wanda Hannah Bullard  
 **USS Black** — Hunter Diana Black  
 **USS Chauncey** — Indiana Chauncey


	9. The Downfall of Tomobiki

**_DISCLAIMER:_** ** _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_** **Copyright Act** ** _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Nerima, the Nekohanten, Monday 22 May, suppertime (Scotland time: Two hours before lunch)...**_

"Lady Yonaga, you honour us with your presence this day."

"My thanks, Elder Kělún. My friends and I are a little famished given the horrid discovery we made some time ago near here. May we seek repast here for a time before we return to the Naval Districts? These good students need it as well."

Noting the considerable crowd of happy Fūrinkan High School students, Nǚ Kělún's eyebrow arched. "What happened, young Akane?" she then asked as she beckoned the small crowd of both shipgirls and normal people into the restaurant.

"The ki-vamp's gone, Hiibā-chan," Tendō Akane coldly declared. "She mistook Kasumi-san here for a normal student, then tried her ki-draining techniques on her. It didn't work, but she didn't care and kept attacking."

"I kicked the little snot into a telephone pole and shattered her back," destroyer Kasumi then spat out as people took their seats, with several boys moving to stay close to the cyan-haired destroyer. "She bled out internally before any medics could come by to save her. Idiot should have recognized our rigging. All our pictures have been plastered all over the news media since we got summoned at Eta-jima, Yokosuka or Sasebo! How could that stupid idiot NOT recognize us?"

"Who cares?!" Kuonji Ukyō muttered as she nodded thanks when Nǚ Shānpú came over with menus for everyone. "She's gone. Once we get rid of the freak with the barber shears and the love of all things Hawai'i, it'll be all cool."

"She was stupid to attack someone like you, Jiànnǚ Kasumi," Saotome Ranma's would-be wife from Qīnghǎi mused as she gave the destroyer a respectful look, making all the locals gape on hearing such perfect Japanese from her. "You did the whole of Nerima a great favour in ridding the ward of that thing. Hai, it was bad that she was so sickly in the first place, but given how much she loved to attack and drain people like she did all the time, she would have killed someone sooner or later."

"She was doing it to more people than just us?" Akane asked.

"Hai, Akane. I saw it a couple of times."

"I noticed it several times as well," Kělún stated. "I don't know what Happy did to that girl, but if she still couldn't understand what the difference between a normal person and one of the zhànjiàn shàonǚ, she was a danger to all."

Grim nods from the other locals, then everyone relaxed themselves as they made orders. Out of respect that there were still some things that were rationed despite all the efforts by the Canadians, the Americans, the Koreans and the Russians to get supplies through to Japan, the shipgirls held off from ordering a massive feast and deprive the locals of needed rations. Once Kělún was off to the kitchen to get things cooked, the Fūrinkan students gazed on the seventh carrier of Operation Z. "So what was that all about with those girls, Yonaga-sama?" Chanpatsu Hiroshi asked "They all looked like they were on drugs or got hit with that magical possession spell I've read about over the Internet once on 'Magic Watch'. What happened to them?"

Yonaga sighed before she nodded thanks as Shānpú came with a cup of tea. "They were victims of a rather ugly experiment to transform them into jūgun-ianfu." Ignoring Shānpú's horrified squawk, the carrier shook her head. "It was done by the grandson of a senior researcher of the unit that helped 'commission' me in 1941. That particular fellow, Professor Murata Yoshiharu, was interested in comprehending of the effects of ebony mesonium on the human body. He had a working relationship with the Black Dragon Society's research teams." As all the non-shipgirls winced on hearing that revelation, Yonaga shook her head. "His grandson, Doctor Murata Eiichi, became the chemistry teacher at a private all-girl's high school in Kyūshū, the Saint Maria Christos Academy. With his grandfather's research notes, he subjugated the staff and students and turned that school into a virtual bordello, with all of them literally brainwashed into being quite willing to be raped by anyone who wanted to sample all the many talents of such beautiful, young and virile women." As all the girls present croaked on hearing that dark revelation, she sighed. "Fortunately, an honourable alien observer from Phentax Two who was not subject to the expulsion Negako-sama and her allies from Yiziba unleashed on them over the last year was willing to do everything she could — even risk breaking cover — to get them away from that school and to safety. However, she didn't get to them all."

"What happened?" Akane asked as she imagined what the Horde of Hentai could have done to her if she was in that state.

"A private hospital in Kumamoto was struck, Akane-san. Two dozen nurses were also subjected to this brainwashing, along with the brother of one of the nurses. They were just found at the site of the school by Kirishima and Hiei." Yonaga then scowled. "Thought this did redound quite positively to us in the long term, ironically. And will benefit Akagi and Kaga well."

"What about Akagi-san and Kaga-san, Yonaga-sama?" Bosabosa Daisuke asked.

"It turns out that Kaga's elder sister Tosa and Akagi's younger sisters were seduced by the girls of that school when they swept in one day two years ago to destroy the place because of its Catholic 'stain' on the land," the carrier responded, which made all the students gape in shocked disbelief at her. Given there was another Catholic school in nearby Musashino, the idea of specifically targeting such a place just because of their adherence to that faith was wrong. "Tosa became lovers with the boy I mentioned earlier, atop also desiring his elder sister. The other girls also gained lovers among those nurses. Right now, one of the Ryūseizen is moving to secure them in hopes of expunging the darkness inside them and having them restored as kantai musume." As people gaped at her, Yonaga sipped her tea. "As soon as we find some way to break the brainwashing on those poor children, we could possibly solicit some of those poor girls to become new special boatswain's mates for us."

"Like Kanami-chan does now with Taihō-san," Asano Sayuri noted.

Akane winced. "Sayuri...!"

"You got fucking gall mentioning Kanami like that, shithead!"

That was Akebono, who was giving Sayuri an ugly look. "Akemi-san, enough," Yonaga admonished, causing the destroyer to yelp as she gazed fearfully at the taller and more muscular shipgirl. Much that the eighth of the Ayanami-class destroyers was happy to heap all sorts of profanity on any human, she would never abuse a sister shipgirl like that. "There's no need for that language in front of our new friends. Yes, they hurt Kanami-san greatly, but they regret their actions. Stop trying to needle them like that; you know what sort of damage you can do to a normal human being. Such would displease Tennō greatly if you did what Kasumi-san just did to the yōma today. This is ultimately Kanami-san's and Taeko-san's concern, not yours."

"It's okay, Yonaga-sama," Tokoro Yuka said as she waved her hand in a show of peace. "Gods only know, Akebono-san has every right to defend Kanami-chan like that!" She then bowed her eyes. "Is she happy with her?"

"What do you mean, Yuka-san?" Murakumo asked.

"Taihō-san? Is Kanami-chan happy with her?"

That made the destroyers of the "tsundere division" smirk. "Considering they pillow each other every freaking night, I'd say they're as tight as Kongō is with the shitty admiral, kiddo," Akebono said before sipping her tea. "It got so loud at times that Kaga and Zuikaku bitched about it constantly to the shitty admiral; that's partially what got them transferred to Sasebo."

"What about Taihō-san's sisters?" Wakaba Hinami asked.

"What sisters...?" Hatsukaze wondered before she perked as it came back to her. "Oh, the G15 girls you mean. Not that it's really any of your business, but Kanami's totally devoted to Taeko. She won't stray..." Her eyes focused on Akane as she said that, making the youngest of Tendō Sōun's daughters wince at that unspoken accusation fired her way by the seventh of the Kagerō-class destroyers. "Not even with Akane-chan herself, I believe," she calmly added before sipping her tea.

That made the Fūrinkan students perk. "Who's that?!" Daisuke asked.

A churlish smile crossed the cyan-haired destroyer's face. "Sekihō."

"Enough, Hikaru-san."

Hatsukaze smirked before she sipped her tea. As Ukyō gave her an amused look — much that she didn't have reason to see herself as a rival of Akane's anymore because of what just happened to Ranma, anything that shook the latter's arrogance was always welcome — Yonaga sighed. "Save it for the true enemy, Hikaru-san," the carrier then sternly bade. "We are defending these people. Much that their personal disputes are amusing to watch, we have more pressing concerns."

"Who made those names for you guys?"

That was Daisuke. "My junior navigation officer's grandnephew," Yonaga said as her grey eyes twinkled. "Moroboshi Ataru. The original list was made three years ago when he wrote a letter to newspapers decrying the treatment of the kantai musume at the time. He expanded on the list right to this day." The carrier then churlishly smiled. "Right behind the backs of the fools in Tomobiki, especially the yūjo he was born from and that spineless coward that is Ataru-san's father."

"Wait!" Sayuri exclaimed. "You mean to say that _**Moroboshi Ataru**_ — the guy who's blamed for everything up to and including the assassination of President Kennedy! — sat back and created human names for you guys?!" She laughed as many of the other people from Fūrinkan smirked. "Oh, that's going to rub those alien-loving idiots the wrong way, that's for DAMN sure!"

"Damn straight about that!" Yuka added. "We never had to deal with the aliens themselves, but that idiot 'stormtrooper' crowd always loved to lord it over anyone if they were unlucky enough to be caught in that town."

"What happened, Yuka-san?" Yonaga asked.

"Yuka-chan and I were on a date once," Daisuke explained. "We just needed to get away from Nerima a bit and we heard about the good places to eat in Tomobiki. Even the namesake restaurant to this place." As Shānpú snorted in disgust, he added, "We were just relaxing and minding our own business when Megane and his morons storm into the place. I was wearing my Fūrinkan badge and Yuka was in her seifuku; it was as obvious as daylight that we were not from Tomobiki High!"

"Megane started to heap a tonne of abuse on Dai because he wasn't 'loyal' to the Oni," Yuka snarled. "I managed to chase them off with a threat to get Ranma-kun involved to send them to the hospital, but never followed through on it."

"Why didn't you tell ME about it, Yuka?!" Akane snapped. "They had no right to do that to you or Daisuke!" She then hissed out, "Damned perverts! Yeah, Ataru-kun had his problems, but everyone knows those alien-lovers were the ones who caused that idiocy with the world's oil a year ago! If they ever showed their ugly mugs in Nerima, I'd have rearranged their faces!"

"No wonder they didn't leave Tomobiki," Hiroshi noted before sipping his own tea. "They must have known deep down that they would have had targets planted on their heads. All the newspapers from here reported the facts about that. Yeah, Ataru was the one who got that driver to get them back home, but he never knew shit about how to pay the guy! Besides, how the hell did Megane know how to summon that taxi in the damned first place?!" He then scratched his chin, shaking his head. "Wonder who it was that got all the oil put back to where those idiot taxi drivers got it from in the first place..."

"A literal goddess who walks among men, Hiroshi-san."

Eyes locked on Yonaga, who had an eerie look on her face...

* * *

 _ **In nearby Itabashi...**_

" _ **AH-CHOO!**_ "

"Ah! Bless you, Ōsaka-san! Are you alright?!"

A moan escaped Kasuga Ayumu. "I'm okay, Chiyo-chan!" the native of Wakayama moaned as she rubbed her nose, then she glanced around, her meta-sight kicking in. Both she and her best friend had been walking down the street towards the Mihama residence overlooking the Arakawa River at the north end of the ward. "Yoiko-chan was talking about me."

"Eh?!" Mihama Chiyo gasped as she gazed on her best friend. "Yoiko-san?! You mean Yonaga?! Yasuko-san's sister, the one they just found in the Arctic when Ataru-san and Negako-san went up there to beat up that installation princess?!"

"Hai, hai," the current incarnation of the Goddess Who Walks Among Men, _**Infinity**_ , declared with a wink. "She was just saying good things to those poor people in Nerima who had to put up to all the dorky stuff around poor Ranma-kun."

The current incarnation of the Bright Genius of the Young Guns, _**Prodigy**_ , could only shake her head. "Oh, leave it be, Ōsaka-san," she then chided in a much more mature tone of voice for an eleven-year old genius. "It was never our fight scene and Kanami-san didn't want to be Gifted. Neither did Ranma-san even if he was dying because of what his stupid father did."

"Still, it is kind of a shame."

"Not our fight scene, Ōsaka-san..."

"Hai...!"

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District, an hour later...**_

"We got all the guard spells raised to keep unauthorized personnel out, Colonel."

"Thank you, Sergeant-Major," Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Bolton said with a nod and salute before the senior healer's assistant headed off to look inside the abandoned gym that had been requisitioned by "W" Commando and the Kantō Magical Association to help house the staff and students of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School while the magical and normal medical staff got to work undoing two years of mental and potential physical damage within over two hundred people.

Standing next to him, Rear Admiral Gotō Kiichi was sharing a quiet smoke with Takahata Takamachi, who was the Tōmagun's senior representative here at this time. "So how long do we have to house these poor girls, Takamachi-san?" Gotō asked.

"Hard to predict, Kiichi-san," Takahata replied with a helpless shrug; despite the two men having grown up in two diametrically-different worlds, they were actually close friends. "First, it's ebony mesonium we're dealing with. Sure, the Canadians know how to safely decrystallize that in their bodies, but the mental after-effects can last for a lifetime as noted from the few survivors of the Black Dragon Society and the Übermenschen Gruppe that were taken prisoner by the Ninth Canadian Division during the war. Second, we don't know exactly what Murata did to them to make them succumb to that bell chime as Yui-chan demonstrated to Yonaga-sama and Akebono-san when they met up with her and her friend in Nerima earlier today. What do we do and what do we DON'T do to prevent a mass orgy, especially with very immature destroyers and young children just across the bay from here." He nodded towards the main part of the Naval District across the small cove of Tōkyō Bay from where they were at now. The victims of Murata Eiichi had been placed on Hakuzaki-chō, an island cut off from all mainland access to help in security even if there was only a sixty metre-wide channel that separated the southern shore of the island from the mainland. "Let's not open THAT Pandora's Box before we know what's inside it."

"Agreed," Bolton said as he came over to join them, then he glanced around for a certain pair of shipgirls. "Where are Commander Miyazato and Commander Hachimori, Admiral?" he asked Gotō. "This all can't work without their input."

"Why them?" the admiral asked. "I understand your people's love of using this Fidelius charm and all that, but why would you want Arisa-sensei and Yūka-san to be the secret keepers in this case? They do have duties at sea."

"What if they're sunk?" Takahata added.

"Oh, yes, there is that risk, Takamachi," the Canadian magical infantry officer stated with a sparkle in his deep grey eyes before he gazed out onto the bay. "But I'm going to bind the secret with a mesonium crystal that was taken directly from the belt armour of HMCS _Lady Jane_. Which will bind Captain Smith to that secret. If something happens to either or both of the commanders, the captain will become secret keeper. We've noticed that save for the Abyssals that love to use mesonium warheads on their targets — like that battleship Captain Gervais put down when she tried to attack Vancouver yesterday — our opponents leave the Leviathan Slayers alone." He looked uncommonly grim. "I wonder if they know something..."

The others tensed. "Those kaijū might be out there?" Gotō asked.

The Whitehorse native grimly nodded. "It might be a possibility."

Takahata winced. "Oh, gods...!"

"We're here!"

All three turned as two grinning shipgirls came over to join them, their rigging dispersing. "Hey, Teitoku! Takamachi-kun!" Akashi called out as she and Yūbari came over to join them. They then stopped on seeing the trim Canadian officer in his neat camouflage uniform before they focused on his coonskin cap. "You're a Forester?!" she exclaimed as she pointed to him.

"I assume some of your crew were nimmibs, Commander," Bolton said with an amused smile as he crossed his arms while his supply company commander, Major Dana McMurray, came over to join them, her own eyebrow arching in curiosity.

"At least ten of my crew," the repair ship who also bore the human name Miyazato Arisa confirmed with a nod. "They had relatives in the First Brigade of the Greater East Asia Liberation Army. The coonskin caps and the black division patch are giveaways to someone like myself." She indicated the black rectangular formation patch of the Ninth Canadian Division (Foresters) on the two magical infantry officers' right upper arms, secured in placed by Velcro strips. "So what's up?"

"We need a pair of good volunteers for a special project," Bolton stated. "I hope Captain Itō's briefed you on your new guests." Here, he gazed over his shoulder at the gymnasium building, which was being swarmed over by medical personnel.

"'M.C. High'," Yūbari muttered under her breath, a dark look crossing the light cruiser's face. "Yeah, Yoiko-san filled us in on all the gory details by secure communications, Colonel. Still, I don't understand how we could help those poor kids, sir. I'm a fleet cruiser with auxiliary technical support duties and Arisa-chan here is a repair depot ship. Neither of us have any knowledge of hospital duties, to say anything of curing people from ebony meson radiation poisoning."

"You'll be protecting these kids in a different way, Commander," McMurray stated. "But one that's just as vital as what our healers and Director Takahata's friends will do for them. Especially from the one who hurt them in the first place."

That made both shipgirls blink. "Tell us how," Yūbari bade...

* * *

 _ **The former site of United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka (across from Hakuzaki-chō), Hōshō's Café, that moment...**_

"So you're the brave one who rescued all those poor girls."

Arisugawa Yui perked on hearing that kind voice from nearby, then she turned as a beautiful raven-haired light aircraft carrier, the truly first of her kind, came over to join her and her friend, a beautiful chocolate parfait in hand. "I didn't save them, Thoughtmistress-prime," the half-Niphentaxian, half-Avalonian cultural observer and would-be high school sophomore said before she smiled her thanks as Hirato Yūko reached over to squeeze her hand in reassurance. "Not yet, at least..."

Hōshō blushed. "I've met a few Avalonians, especially from the Hinata observation post across the peninsula from here," the shipgirl known to her close friends as Asano Hoshie said as she sat down beside the two Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School alumni. "You did what you could given your circumstances, Yui-chan. I assume that 'loyalty lock' that affected your mother's people didn't affect you in the long term?" At Yui's nod, the carrier squeezed her shoulder in reassurance. "Then you did your best given the situation you faced. You didn't want to expose the truth of your parentage to any other observer in case your actions got public exposure. You knew Kei-chan's sister and her friends were 'sampling the wares' and you heard the horrid stories of what Abyssal princesses could do to young, virile women. And you saved all your classmates and teachers, getting them to safety, then you dedicated yourself to learn how to heal them. You did very well, Yui-chan."

The younger woman born under a different star considered that, then she sighed. "I doubt I could ever feel good about it until they're all back to normal," she noted. "I mean, there were times I had to have sex with them in case they heard the right bell chime to trigger the hypnosis. I felt like I was raping them. In a way, I WAS raping them!" She hissed back a sob before she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "If I had got them body-swaps — which I could have done — I'd have enslaved them. With that idiot Ōgi — he's MY age, believe it or not! — having become President, that was dangerous. You folks found that out the hard way when Thoughtmistress-prime Negako found that bomb in the Tomobiki Ginza. What was I to do?" She shook her head before sipping her drink, then she gazed out the window at the beautiful scene around the Yokosuka Naval District.

Hōshō gave her a sympathetic smile, then she gazed on Yūka. "What about yourself, Yūka-chan? You don't have Yui-chan's beautiful ears, yet you weren't hypnotized. And you helped her get the others to Nerima. What's your story?"

"I'm a pervert, Sensei," Yūka stated. "Or at least, I'm developing that way." As the carrier squawked in shock, the raven-haired teen with the glasses winked. "I was strictly raised, like a lot of the kids that went to that place. Eventually, I rebelled. They sent me to M.C. High as punishment. Then one day, the bell rang and the orgy started. I was..." She shrugged. "Shocked. I was convinced that there was something wrong with me...and then, when the others began to urge me to join in, I came to believe that God allowed the world to go crazy to make me feel normal." She then scowled. "Until I learned the truth of what was going down at that place thanks to Yui-chan. I may be perverted, Sensei, but I don't approve of rape whatsoever."

"I'm sure there are a lot of cruisers here who might suit your needs," Hōshō said, surprising Yui with how calm she was at that revelation. Then again, given how emotionally old the first true aircraft carrier was, perhaps it didn't surprise the cultural observer in the end that Hōshō was being so polite about it. Yes, Yūka was unique in her outlook and behaviour and not afraid to admit such, which was something traditional Japanese society often frowned on. But given that she gladly accepted her mental "weakness", then strove to do good for her classmates and teachers, such a "weakness" could then be accepted as a mere "eccentricity" that was winked at and joked about by friends, but not acted upon unless something really bad happened in the future. Once the truth of this madness got aired out — as it would once Murata Eiichi was caught — then perhaps Yūka's parents could be brought to heel and made to realize what they actually ended up helping do to their child. "After all, this whole movement to get special boatswain's mates to the kanmusu includes the cruisers as well. Any preference?"

"I'd like to test drive them first, Sensei!" Yūka said with a wink.

" _ **YŪKA!**_ " Yui shrieked out...

...then both girls tensed for a moment before they looked around in confusion. "Wait! Something just happened," Yui stated before she closed her eyes as she focused her body's considerable psionic powers into determining what.

Yūka blinked. "The girls, Yui-chan. Those crazy Canucks actually made the girls' location disappear from our thoughts."

"The Fidelius charm," Hōshō explained as she moved to head back to the counter to prepare more drinks for her guests. "It failed poor Harry-chan's parents since they trusted the wrong person with that secret. Done right, it does wonders. The magicals among the Canadians, the Australians, the New Zealanders and a whole tonne of others make use of it frequently to ensure normal people entrusted with the secret of magic don't expose it to someone who doesn't need to know."

"That's going to change big-time in the future," Yui warned. "At least Canadian magicals will survive it well. Admiral Thompkins is magical and she was Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards before Thoughtmaster-prime Dumbledore got the post. And obliviating someone's mind without any sort of authorization is a serious crime in that country." She then shook her head. "Given how bad those idiots in Europe and America have botched it at times...!"

"You seem well-informed of things, Yui-chan," Hōshō noted. "Ataru-kun told me that it was forbidden for observers to communicate to each other to ensure no mass exposure of their presence could be provoked for whatever reason."

"It was relaxed because of the Abyssals, especially with the growing breakdown of the magical secrecy veil, Thoughtmistress-prime," Yui noted. "Everyone in Japan got the news of Nagato-sama's adopting of Harry Potter and his whole background story within days of his being brought to Japan after he was rescued from those child-abusers he was forced to reside with because Thoughtmaster-prime Dumbledore felt he had no choice but to get him away from all magical influence."

"What would you do to those Dursleys if you got the chance?" Yūka asked.

An icy smile crossed Yui's face. "You DON'T want to know, Yūka."

Hōshō tittered as Yūka smirked...

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, the headmaster's office, that moment (local time: An hour before lunch)...**_

" _ **AH-CHOO!**_ "

"Bless you, Reiko-san! Are you alright?!" Yamato gasped.

Nagato groaned before she gazed apologetically at the others in the room. "I'm sorry about that," the raven-haired battleship stated. "Someone was talking about me. It wasn't Harry-chan, though. Someone back at the Naval District..."

"Which we aught to get back to as soon as possible," Iowa then advised. "This place is really cool to visit, but these kids don't need the distraction anymore and we got our duties to worry about. 'Duty is heavier than a mountain'..."

"'Death is lighter than a feather'," the Japanese battleship finished for the first of her class of fast battleships. "Indeed we should go. Professor, we've taken up too much of your time even if we join you in rejoicing at Voldemort's downfall."

"You're too kind, Reiko," Albus Dumbledore stated as he beckoned the shipgirls out of the office and down the stairs. "Much that it would be a delight to have you stay for lunch, you do have your duties and the ships you've just summoned will have to spend some time getting their sea legs before they can face the enemy and help cleanse them from the oceans. We shouldn't delay about that, I believe." His eyes then twinkled. "At least Harry's made some inroads in the Wizengamot."

"And with the normally 'dark' faction as well," Warspite noted. "Thought Pansy's and Daphne's fathers seem like decent chaps. I think Parkinson Enterprises might actually be owned by Lord Malcolm or one of his relatives..."

"It is Malcolm that owns the company, Charlene. Indeed, a lot of the Parkinson family wealth is invested in companies on your side of the security divide. I would have disapproved of it in the past, but given the present circumstances, it will do well to serve Malcolm's family when the Statute finally falls and we're all united once more under one umbrella to enjoy the TRUE Greater Good. Certainly, our friends in Gringotts don't complain about all the gold Malcolm's investments bring in because of that." Here, he shook his head. "Truly shocked me beyond belief to see _Mason Nott_ of all people in tears after he saw the memories of the adoption ceremony at Stonehenge. I thought the poor man was just beyond tears these days."

"Hopefully, he'll find a good lady to be his new wife," Warspite noted as they reached the lower landing, then moved to head across the main courtyard towards the Great Hall. "Theodore's a decent young lad. He needs a good mother."

"Matchmaking, Charlene-san?" Nagato stated as she gave the older battleship a knowing look.

"Some of the heavy cruisers might consider him a challenge, Reiko."

Laughter escaped the other shipgirls as Dumbledore shook his head, wondering how a magical traditionalist like the current patriarch of the Nott Clan of Torridge would take getting a _**shipgirl**_ of all people as a wife. By then, they had reached the main landing to the Great Hall, where all the staff and students had gathered along with the considerable number of shipgirls who had come to Hogwarts over the last day or so. "I trust you're all topped off and you're ready to sail, ladies."

"More than ready, Dumbledore-kōchōsensei," Akagi said as the other carriers of the Kidō Butai bowed politely to him. "On behalf of our long-missing mission mate as well, we wish you all the Kami's favour for success and hope in the future."

"I accept your blessings in the true spirit they were given, Commander Fujita," he replied as he returned that bow. "And please give our deepest respects and thanks to Captain Itō when you see her next. She did all of us a great service in ensuring that the staff and students didn't fall victim to the infiltrator in our midst, plus helped obtain the final justice to students of this school both past and present." Here, he gazed knowingly at Harry Potter, who was currently holding Hoppō's hand.

"Yoiko-san was more than happy to help out," Kaga stated. "Sadly, she now has something else to distract her for the time being while she better adjusts to such a different time than what the kami of her crew are familiar with."

"I'm sure she'll adjust to it very well, Commander," Minerva McGonagall said.

"Especially with such loyal friends as you at her side," Pomona Sprout added.

Cheers escaped the Hufflepuffs in the crowd on hearing that. As laughter filled the air, eyes locked on the Boy Who Lived. He immediately walked over to embrace Nagato, which made everyone applaud. "I'll see you at King's Cross next month, Mama," he said as he gazed up at her, which earned him another roar of approval from his friends across all the houses.

"It's a date," the battleship vowed. "I'll bring the others."

"Hoppō wishes she could stay..."

Eyes locked on the child-like Abyssal who was standing nearby. Seeing that, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott exchanged looks, then they came up to place warm hands on Hoppō's shoulders. "That you love Harry speaks highly of you, Hoppō," the former then said. "We can understand you wanting to protect Harry. He's a wonderful brother to you and you're just being a proper sister to him. Don't you worry. We'll always have Harry's back. You're a real Hufflepuff, Hoppō!"

"Besides, we loved it when you bopped that troll at Hallowe'en!" Hannah added.

Hoppō's cheeks turned grey at that compliment, then she smiled. "Hoppō likes Big Brother's nice friends from Badger House," she said, which made the freshmen Hufflepuffs beam. "As much as Hoppō likes Big Brother's smart friends from Eagle House, brave friends from Lion House and wise friends from Snake House." That made the other freshmen gape and blush at her appraisal. "Hoppō's glad that she told Miss Chennalton about the other stinky troll she found down in the school."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **WHAT TROLL?!**_ " McGonagall and Nagato both exclaimed.

"Oh, blimey! I totally forgot about that!"

Eyes locked on Rubeus Hagrid. "The one that Quirinus brought to school?" Dumbledore asked the half-giant groundskeeper.

"Aye, Professor. Hoppō was exploring the castle late last night and ran into Fluffy in the third floor corridor," Hagrid explained. As many of the students, including the Weasley twins, perked on hearing about that particular corridor, he added, "She and he got along just fine, but then she smelled the troll Professor Quirrel put into the basement. She got Captain Chennalton over to check things out. After the troll growled at her, she put him to sleep, then the captain took him into the Forest."

"He was even more stinky than the one Hoppō bopped on Hallowe'en!" Hoppō protested.

"You bopped him poi, right?" Harry asked.

Hoppō nodded. "Poi!"

"Poi!" Yūdachi chimed in turn with an approving nod.

As the other destroyers all whooped and cheered on hearing that, Chennalton added, "I also took care of what you were hiding there, Professor." Here, she gave the headmaster a knowing look. "I saw to it that it was properly disposed of."

Dumbledore sighed. "My thanks, Captain. I'm sorry to put you through that."

"You have Papa's respect, Professor," the last Canadian super-battleship warned. "You made a couple mistakes there, but it all came out well in the end. Next time, ask the experts in 'A' Commando if you need that type of help."

He wryly chuckled. "I'll remember that."

The other battleships sent the second of the Argo-class a curious look...

* * *

 _ **The north field, minutes later...**_

"What was he hiding there, Patricia-san?" Nagato asked.

Chennalton smirked. After the newly-summoned British and German battleships were given a rousing sendoff across the Hogwarts Lake for the train trip to London, everyone who had come from Japan had headed up to the waiting Dynajet that Moroboshi Ataru had brought with him the previous afternoon. Save for Graf Zeppelin, who had gladly accompanied Bismarck back to London eventually to return to Kiel. Awaiting for them now at the boarding ramp was a smiling Roma as Ataru was inside getting things set up for the trip home with the tactical transport's crew. "It was the Philosopher's Stone," the flagship of the Pacific division of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron explained. "Personal invention of Nicolas Flamel."

That made Iowa and New Jersey perk. "Wait! Isn't that the Sorcerer's Stone, Patty?!" the former then asked. "The thing that could make gold out of lead, plus give someone the same type of lifespan that Rittmeister von Taserich has?!"

"The same one, Gabby. But the one in the castle was a fake."

"It was a lure to bring out this Voldemort fool, you mean?" Musashi demanded.

"Unfortunately."

" _ **WHAT?!**_ " the other shipgirls shrieked.

" _ **RELAX!**_ " Chennalton snapped, making everyone stare at her.

"Did Dumbledore-kōchōsensei do something about that, Sensei?" Mutsuki asked.

"He did, Mutsuko-chan," the Canadian battleship assured her. "In that fake crystal, he placed a hypercharged ebony mesonium shard. The instant Riddle touched it even through Quirrel, it would have triggered a reaction similar to a bomb..."

"It would have smoked that motherfucker, you mean," Jersey noted.

"Exactly. The professor may slip on occasions, but he's no fool, Kathy."

Nagato sighed. "Well, let's hope that we don't have to deal with these games anymore," she stated as she ducked to ensure Hoppō — riding on the battleship's shoulders — didn't hit her head on an overhang. "I might have to consider withdrawing Harry-chan from that school if something stupid happens to him in the future," she noted as she placed the Abyssal princess on a chair, then fastened her down with a seat belt. "That's NOT what this old battleship's boilers need!"

"That would definitely not be khoroshó," Hibiki noted as the girls of Division Six secured themselves with Tenryū's help.

"Damn straight," Iowa said as the other battleships sat down.

The smiling flight crew then moved to secure them down as a woman in solid black from neck to toe stepped aboard. "I trust the issue with Thomas' followers has been properly resolved," Moroboshi Negako wondered.

"Hey, Negako! Where have you been, girl?!" Iowa asked.

"Meeting with the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest and exchanging stellar observations with them, Abigail," the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū noted as she moved to perform a little shiatsu on Fubuki. "Plus I located at least a half-dozen other people who had once been affiliated with Thomas. They moved to camp themselves out to await your departure before striking out at Harry. They were dealt with and Sirius dispatched the Hollows to transport them to Gonebren."

"How can I communicate with him if he's in this prison, Negako-san?" Nagato asked. "He is Harry-chan's godfather. He has every right to know about what's happened to Harry-chan since I got him out of Little Whinging in the first place."

"I will make the necessary arrangements through Her Majesty, Reiko," Ataru's sister vowed as she moved to help Yūdachi settle down. "I see that Amélie's efforts to see you 'returned' to the Bundeswehr failed, Catarina."

Everyone blinked, then they gazed on Prinz Eugen. "Ja, they did," the third of the Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruisers stated as a flash of guilt echoed in her eyes. "Much that it still hurts me to see Luisa so distraught like she gets at time because I'm not in Germany, I can't ignore the guilt I feel because of the Holocaust." She then shrugged as San Francisco gave her a warm squeeze on the shoulder. "Ironically, it was Margarethe von der Salle that argued against my going back to Germany."

"Why would Margarethe-san do that, Catarina-san?" Sekihō asked.

"Because my ship name is technically _**Austrian**_ , Akane," Eugen stated. "The ship that held the name 'Prinz Eugen' before me was a battleship of the Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine of _**Austria-Hungary**_." She then giggled as some of the others in the aircraft nodded in appreciation. "Actually, if you really wish to get technical and think of my 'nationality' as the same as my namesake, I'm both French and Italian. The original Prince Eugene of Savoy was born in Paris and his home territory is shared between the two republics these days, with most of it in Italy in fact." She then flashed Roma an amused look, her eyes twinkling with mischief. "You're not going to turn me away from eating spätzle, Roberta. I happen to like it too much."

The third of the Littorio-class battleships shuddered. "How could you eat that horrible garbage anyway?" she asked while trying not to look sick at the idea of having something that wasn't made with proper Italian love and respect of food.

"Relax, Rinnie!" Iowa vowed with a wink. "We'll just have to make the pizza girl here love Chicago-style deep dish!"

Roma exploded. " _ **DON'T SPEAK OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH, ABIGAIL!**_ "

Laughter filled the Dynajet as the engines began to turn over...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, the Toranoseishin Finances Tower, that moment...**_

"How is she, Isabella-san?"

Hearing that concerned question, the dusky-skinned destroyer with the sun-streaked black hair and the olive green eyes smiled at her gracious host, her cheeks reddening as she felt Moroboshi Hiromi's hand grip her shoulder. "She is slowly recovering, Hiromi-san," Ārtemis said as she gently pressed the cloth touched with ruby mesonium dust onto the forehead of the sleeping Japanese destroyer now in the bed. Brushing aside the bangs of healthy dark purple hair from Kisaragi's face, the Battle-class destroyer that was once christened as Her Majesty's Ship _Sluys_ could only smile at the wonderful fortune God had given her and her fellow destroyers on their current mission. While she didn't know what the end result would be — Ārtemis had not been briefed about same by her commander back in Bandar 'Abbās before she, Babr and Palang had deployed from the Persian Gulf with their cargo to come to Japan — it was of great importance for humanity as a whole.

"It's a miracle that you ran into her like that," the film replica of Moroboshi Ataru noted as she stared upon the girl whose "sinking" at the Battle of Wake Island three years ago prompted Ataru to write a certain letter that had such enormous impact on shipgirls worldwide. Seeing her appear almost normal rather than the ghastly creature the Abyssals had turned the second of the Mutsuki-class destroyers into gave Hiromi hope for the poor girl. While she had become quite dangerous as an Abyssal, there was still a shred of humanity inside the shipgirl who had been given the human name Kisaragi Kyōko by Ataru. It had been enough for a meson-augmented scimitar once used by the famous warrior missionary Hasan-e Sabbāh a millennia before — gifted by the Islamic Iranian Ministry of Magical Affairs to Ārtemis for her task — to help burn away the dark influence thanks to a thrust right through the transformed Kisaragi's heart by the thirteenth of the Battle-class destroyers.

"God steered my hand that day, my friend," Ārtemis said with a twinkle in her eyes as she gently probed the shiatsu points on the older destroyer's face to ensure that what little fragments of the darkness that had claimed the poor soul wouldn't try to hurt her again. Much less hurt her sisters and friends back in Yokosuka. "So Lady Negako finally disposed of that ungodly creature that tried to kill Commander Yamamoto's son," she then mused, her voice still flecked with the Merseyside accent that marked her place of birth at Birkenhead. "It is good. That this Riddle idiot defied God in such a manner as that...!"

"He was begging for a mesonium bomb to be dropped on his head," Hiromi darkly noted before she shook her head. Grateful that her "character" had been a social worker in that class film which saw her created from the very magic of Tomobiki itself thanks to that camera Redet Lum had loaned over to see it completed — thus, she wasn't anywhere close to being profane in her current mode of speech than her other film-replicas such as Redet Danu — she sighed as she focused once more on Kisaragi. "Wake up, Kyōko-chan..." she then tenderly whispered. "Mutsuko-chan and the others miss you so much..."

"She won't know her human name," Ārtemis warned.

"Many Abyssals who are related to shipgirls in some way know of the human names. She'll recognize it, Isabella-san..."

A smile crossed the adopted Iranian destroyer's face, then she perked as her radar instantly picked up her two fleet mates now approaching the door to the guest bedroom that had been set aside for the three visitors from Bandar 'Abbās and their current companion. "Did you make the delivery?" she asked after the door opened to allow Babr and Palang to step inside. Like her, the two former Allen M. Sumter-class destroyers were in civilian clothes and not their sea uniforms.

"Easy as pie," Babr said with a smirk and a wink. Formerly United States Ship _Zellars_ , the fifty-third of the Sumter-class destroyers had responded to the call of duty at the headquarters of the Islamic Iranian Navy in Tehrān four years ago; along with her came her sistership Palang (ex-USS _Stormes_ ). It had been just in time; in their campaign against humanity, the Abyssals had gone after the oil supply first to cut all nations off from the lifeblood of modern technology. The whole Arabian peninsula had become a dog's breakfast after that; what few combat forces there from both local navies and other nations had been wiped out with ridiculous ease and all the major cities had been turned into piles of rocks strewn with dead bodies.

Two of the cities destroyed in that campaign were Makkah and al-Madīnah al-Munawwarah, the two holiest cities in Islam.

The righteous swell of outrage that arose from that attack united the once-divided adherents of the Prophet Muḥammad like never before. The differences between the two main sects of Islam were brushed aside as nations as divergent from each other as Iran and Saudi Arabia came together to find a unified defence against the evil al-jinn of the oceans who dared despoil all of God's creation. While there were few shipgirls that could be summoned, they did came and were welcomed as blessed holy warriors of the Faith, accepted with all their many eccentricities even if such flew right in the face of the sensibilities of religious ultra-conservatives that once ran the two largest nations in the region. Joined by the shipgirls of Israel — who were happy to help save lives regardless of the long-standing hatred of the Jewish state; doing such had effectively ensured that the Palestinians would gain a better future as part of a United States of Israel and Palestine after brave warriors who once fought for Ḥamās had sacrificed themselves to save hundreds of helpless children at the Battle of Yāfō before Israeli and Egyptian shipgirls got in there to chase them off — they managed to beat back the Abyssals until the shipgirl corps of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand could sweep in to help out, especially with a good legion of escort aircraft carriers who made sure that the Red Sea and Suez Canal remained open to ensure that the oil could finally flow to the thirsty markets of Europe.

Aiding the shipgirls of two dozen nations in the region were all the magicals of the region, led by a remarkable Saudi woman named Dabūrāh bint-Nūḥ al-Jubayl, who had been declared the Supreme Guardian of the Two Holy Mosques by both King Salmān of Saudi Arabia and Supreme Leader 'Ali Khāmenei of Iran three years ago after she used ancient spells to drive off the Abyssals from the wreckage of Makkah before they could despoil the foundations of the al-Masjid al-Ḥarām and the al-Ka'bah within its main courtyard. While the idiots at the International Confederation of Wizards in Geneva screamed for proper enforcement of their stupid secrecy statute, magically-enforced proclamations issued by the leaders of various nations made sure that the European-centrist alliance wouldn't have any sway in the heart of Islam ever again. Ironically, this won the quiet support of Albus Dumbledore, who had long ago seen the writing on the wall and was now joining allies across the Continent to prepare for the day that the Statute was no more and when magicals would once more live openly alongside normals.

Mistress Dabūrāh had done one other thing that had won the thanks of Islamic leaders across two continents. She had made contact with the living heirs of Hasan-e Sabbāh: The mysterious Asāsiyyin, shadow warriors who saw themselves as volunteer defenders of Islam and all like-minded faiths...and, much to the horror of Islamic conservatives, didn't give a damn concerning the arguments between the various schools about the leadership and future of the Faithful. Given they were all WOMEN, the distrust concerning the deadly warriors who fought under the command of Palestinian-born Maryam bint-Hasan 'Amarraḥīm min-Alamūt al-Mūsa was profound...until everyone learned Master Hasan had once been the student of the famous Immortal Master Hosan Hirosuke, teacher and adopted father to the Protector of All Life, Dean Raeburn! Given how easily the warrior-maidens of Alamūt had waded their way through an enemy carrier group without taking casualties in return during the hectic Battle of the Strait of Hormuz after Mistress Dabūrāh and Mistress Maryam came to their "ladies' agreement" concerning the Abyssals, not even those who would have once fought for al-Qā'idah or Dā'ish had cause to object to them anymore.

Especially when they elected to take all the shipgirls of the Middle East and Israel under their personal tutelage.

Of course, the story was WAY more complex than that...

"Your mind's drifting, Isabella-san," Hiromi then teased.

The destroyer who had the human names Isabella Plantagenet (in the West) and Ameretāt bint-Anushe min-Alamūt al-Ansāri (in Iran) blushed. "She's just dreaming of the next time her wife takes her to bed," Babr teased, her blue eyes — a clear mark of her American ancestry — twinkling in amusement. "After all, just like your own great Art, Hiromi-san, the teachings of Master Hasan also include very intensive tantric elements that can kill just as easily as a sword thrust through the heart."

Hiromi smirked as Ārtemis sputtered...

* * *

 _ **Entering Tomobiki from Nerima, nightfall...**_

"Three destroyers?"

"Hai, Akemi-san," Yonaga stated as she and her current escort group made their way down Metropolitan Route 8, which would eventually lead to the Hōya-dōri, the main north-south commercial thoroughfare in Tomobiki. Gazing around, the seventh carrier of Operation Z was quick to notice the slight shift of auras once one crossed the actual border between Nerima and Nishitōkyō. To the east were relatively happy people who had bowed or cheered when the shipgirls passed them by. To the west were people who seemed to act as if something had been cut out of their very hearts; the depression etched on many faces was something none could ignore. There were exceptions, of course...and the shipgirls were quick to note that the exceptions were all women of their physical age, many of whom were dressed in high school uniforms, including the dark blue seifuku of the world's most infamous place of education known. "A Battle-class and two Sumter-class."

"Where exactly, Yoiko-san?" Kasumi asked.

"The tall tower dead ahead of us."

The destroyers looked. "Oh, that's the Toranoseishin Finances building!" Murakumo then declared, snapping her fingers before she pointed to the fifteen-floor office building that formed one of three such towers in Tomobiki's very core. "Ataru-kun's sister Hiromi-chan lives there now. Kanami-chan and Taeko-san stayed there for a time when they got chased out of Yokosuka because they were pillowing each other too much and Kei-san and Suzue-chan griped a blue streak over it."

"Fuck! They were just jealous that Taeko-san was getting some, Mayako," Akebono said with a knowing smirk that nearly melted into a leer. "Personally, you ask me, I think Kanami-chan's bonding urges have got her but good now!"

The other destroyers laughed. "'Bonding'...?" Yonaga began before she nodded. "Ah, yes! The marei'cha thing. Negako-sama warned me about that. She's more than convinced that Ataru-san has felt that concerning Roberta Ansaldo."

"Roma?" Hatsukaze asked on recognizing the human name of the third of the Littorio-class battleships. "Fuck! If she's coming here, I'm transferring to Sasebo! Her cooking is something else! No wonder Ataru-kun wants to marry her!"

"Damn straight, Hikaru! I think I over-topped my tanks once on that homemade pizza of hers!" Akebono groaned as she rubbed her tummy. "Damn! I still can't get the fact that Gabby and Kathy still swear to that Chicago pan pizza shit!"

"They're Americans, Akemi!" Michishio sneered out with a knowing smirk. "Everything about America takes first place over anything else! At least when they come to visit us, the Europeans, the Canucks, the Aussies and the Kiwis do their best to learn about our society and culture! Fuck, I'd do an escort mission with any of the Canuck girls any time of the day! They're way more friendlier to get along with than even any of the calmer Fletchers, much less those loons in Taffy Three!"

"Don't knock down the bravery of girls like Rose, Michiko," Kasumi stated. "They took on battleships and cruisers to save their troops on the shores of Leyte back in '44. Kistiñe almost died fighting that warped version of Hoppō-chan three years ago. Major Solette was happy to help her and the others who went up there to deal with that stupid little bitch, even Mutsuko-san."

"Indeed, do not disparage our former enemies' bravery, Michiko-san," Yonaga advised. "They may not understand bushidō as we understand it, but they have a code of honour that truly drives them to incredible feats when called to do so."

"Yeah, that's true," Akebono muttered...

" _ **KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! MEN!**_ "

The shipgirls all perked, then they winced on hearing the thunderous noise of a building collapse some blocks away. "Ah, shit!" Akebono moaned as the destroyers all broke out into a run to see what was happening. "The androphobe!"

"They should damn hell put power-dampeners on her!" Michishio snarled.

"What is the issue here?" Yonaga asked as she followed them at a good jog.

"You known of the Mizunokōji Clan, Yoiko-san?" Kasumi asked.

The seventh carrier of Operation Z hummed. "High merchant clan during the last bafuku, Kasumi-san. They were almost promoted to samurai at the time Tōshō Daigongen was made shōgun at the command of Go-Yōzei Tennō after Sekigahara. They were refused because of some stupid court dispute concerning the matriarchs of that clan, but the reason why was never recorded down. They were quite wealthy at the time the Greater East Asia War started. They live here in Tomobiki now?"

"Second-richest family in the country behind the Mendō," Kasumi explained. "Ataru-kun knows both the current heir of the family and his younger sister. Turns out there's this weird legend among that family that states that future matriarchs would inherit the strength of the Kami Themselves if they were raised totally isolated from men until they reached puberty. Problem with the stupid girl that went through that in this generation was that she was never briefed on shit about men."

"When she ran into Ataru-kun about three months ago, she totally freaked out and became scared of every guy who crossed her path," Akebono added. "Wasn't really his fault; with Negako-sensei in his head, he wasn't in his right mind at the time. The real fault's with the dumb girl's mother. You'd think that someone who has the strength to bench-press the mass of a main battle tank would make the girl understand how to control that strength. It's a miracle someone hasn't died because..."

" _ **HOW DARE YOU IMPLY I RAISED MY CHILD IMPROPERLY, YOU STUPID GIRL?!**_ "

The destroyers all screamed out just as Yonaga snap-drew her katana...

A second later, a shriek of mortal fright echoed over eastern Tomobiki!

Heads of people who were close to the scene snapped over before people's jaws dropped on seeing the matriarch of the Mizunokōji Clan now at the mercy of the seventh carrier of Operation Z, who had her katana at the shorter woman's throat. As many of the boys brightened on seeing Mizunokōji Saeko within a hair's breadth of becoming a head shorter, footsteps echoed through the street. "Yonaga-san! Minna-san!" Shōkaku's voice echoed from the direction of the Toranoseishin Tower.

Yonaga's eyes flicked to port to see the two fighting shipgirls of Carrier Division Five race her way at flank speed, their daikyū out and arrows notched, ready for launch. "My apologies for forcing you into action so soon after you returned from Scotland, my friends," she said before she coldly glared Saeko down. "Now, madame, who gives you the right to threaten my fleet mates like that?" she then coldly asked as her grey eyes seem to glow with the immortal power of her soul.

As Zuikaku came up to give Yonaga support, a girl screamed, " _ **OKĀ-SAMA! YOU LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU MONSTER!**_ "

The younger of the Shōkaku-class armoured carriers stopped and pivoted on her left leg, her right one sweeping around at flank speed in a spinning back kick. The armoured boot caught the chin of a young teenage women in a black seifuku uniform, sending her flying into the sky to smash back-first into a nearby telephone pole. As Mizunokōji Asuka shrieked on having thousands of volts surge through her thanks to severed power cables, many of the boys watching this all screamed in delight. That made Saeko howl in outrage...before that scream melted into a gargle of underwear-soiling fear as the sharp kiss of Yonaga's katana on her throat made her stop from doing something foolish. "Nice kick, Zuikaku-chan!" one boy yelled.

"'Bout time someone put down that man-phobe!" another boy sneered out.

"Hope she _**dies**_ because of that! She's a menace to all men!" a third snarled.

Screams and howls of delight escaped the boys who were now gathering around the scene. Their cheers then rocked up several notches as a now-burnt Asuka dropped from where Zuikaku had kicked her, falling face-first into the hard asphalt below, leaving quite the hole in the ground. As many of the girls watching this either shook their heads in disgust or actually gave the androphobic heiress of the Mizunokōji Clan of Musashino pitying looks for being mistreated that way, Zuikaku smirked before she came up to stand close to Yonaga. "Need help?" the younger of the Shōkaku-class then calmly asked.

"No, Zuikaku-san, I was just about to ask this stupid woman as to why she feels she has the right to attack our fleet mates like that," the larger carrier said as she fixed Saeko with a look that lacked any pity whatsoever.

"Don't be surprised, Yonaga-san," Akebono snarled. "This snooty bitch thinks she's the toughest idiot in this town! Ha! Once Ataru 'goes 'Borg' all over this idiot, they'll be cleaning what's left of her with a mop and squeegee!"

"Maybe we should get Ataru-kun over here to get some exercise," Michishio then proposed. "Doubt those Death Eaters would have given him much in the way of fun, hiding behind their stupid magic like they always do!"

The other destroyers laughed. "Girls, ix-nay!" Zuikaku then hissed. "These idiots don't know about Ataru-kun's little trick!"

"How...h-how dare...y-you threaten m-me...you...m-monster...?"

Yonaga's eyes focused on Saeko...whose facial features hadn't changed from that weird, perennial smile that she had, that pierced by glittering eyes. "By what right does a MERCHANT like you have to threaten the warriors of Tennō, madame?" the fifth of the Yamato-class then said in a voice that threatened a world of pain to the matriarch of the Mizunokōji Clan. "Regardless of Ataru-san's supposed culpability in triggering your daughter's pathetic phobia three month ago, it is YOU who were responsible for preparing your child for her duties to your family and to the nation! Do NOT skirt your responsibilities!" She gazed on the boys there. "How many times has that girl hurt innocent bystanders with her strength?!"

"Look for yourself, Yonaga-sama!" one Butsumetsu High boy said, waving down the street.

Yonaga and Zuikaku looked...

...then they gaped on seeing the wrecked office building on the south side of the street about a half-block away, it looking as if several bombs hit it. Right now, a small crowd of students and paramedics were busy digging wounded people — including several young children — out of the wreckage. "Damn! I've seen air raids do less damage than that!" Zuikaku hissed.

"We just said 'hello' to her and her friends from Keppeki!" another boy snapped on seeing the look of fury crossing Yonaga's face on noting that civilians had been hurt because of a girl who had no sense of self-control, just like the aliens who lived in this place for a year. "We weren't hitting on her for a date! We know how much of a fucking menace she is!" Ignoring Saeko's scream of " _ **LIES!**_ ", he added, "NO! She freaked and put three of our guys in the hospital just because they were boys! One of us got a lucky hit with a baseball bat that knocked her against the building to get the other guys near her clear, then she totally freaks out and rips out a good hunk of wall to fling at us! That brought the whole fucking building down on the people there!"

"What has occurred here?"

Hearing that icy, neutral voice, heads turned west to see a woman in black from neck to toe approach the scene, a calm look on her face. "Negako-sama," Yonaga greeted the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū. "We have an interesting incident here! Tell me: Are there fatalities within that building that stupid girl helped make collapse just a few minutes ago?"

Moroboshi Negako's eyebrow arched, then she looked over. A moment later, she turned once more to stare intently at Saeko, who was now as white as a sheet on noting that the personal assassin of the Heavenly Sovereign was now taking interest in what just happened. "If someone had died because of Asuka's phobia, Saeko, I would have killed her as a result," she coldly said, which made the crowd gasp with relief and horror on realizing how close it had become. "But four of the people Asuka just injured will require long hospitalization. I will speak to Yūjiro about this to have all the victims of this incident properly compensated for YOUR failure to raise your child properly. AND I will deprive you AND Asuka of your metahuman powers."

Saeko's eyes went wide. " _ **NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...!**_ "

A fist smashed into her face to silence her! "Shut up!" Zuikaku snapped.

Seeing the matriarch of the Mizunokōji Clan knocked down, all the boys seeing this gaped before they broke out in a chorus of relieved cheers. As the girls looked unsure as to how to react, Negako walked over to kneel beside the fallen Saeko...

* * *

 _ **The Toranoseishin Finances tower, an hour later...**_

"My thanks for such lovely tea, Reigi-san."

"Our pleasure, Yoiko-sama," Yumoa Reigi, the current chief of operations for Toranoseishin Finances and Moroboshi Hiromi's right-hand man when it came to operations concerning the Inshin Group owned by the Moroboshi Clan, said with a polite bow as a steward handed the seventh carrier of Operation Z a cup of fermented tea. "We confirmed the incident surrounding Asuka-chan and what happened, Hiromi-san," he then told the current host of the shipgirls who had come into Tomobiki this evening; they had been joined by the three Iranian destroyers who had come to Japan. "No fatalities, but four people are in intensive care at Nishitōkyō General. Yūjiro-sama has been informed of it and has volunteered to pay for hospital expenses to all the victims. We also got a note from Headmistress Tomohotoke of Keppeki. She extends her gratitude to Negako-sama for doing something about Asuka-chan's strength. The couple of times boys got close to her near the school grounds resulted in considerable damage to the school's outer security perimeter. Yūjiro-sama has volunteered to pay for that as well."

"That's not the only incident that has occurred here, has it?" Yonaga asked.

Reigi shook his head. Part-American just like Hayashi Kanami, he had been adopted by Hiromi's uncle Moroboshi Kokeru and sent to both Tōkyō University and Yale University, returning back just before trans-Pacific travel had pretty much been cut off by the Abyssals. His wizardry with finances had done much to help all the major keiretsu such as the Mendō Conglomerate and the Mizunokōji Corporation weather the shocks to the economy a near-total blockade of the Home Islands had unleashed. He was being earmarked to join the National Diet as a potential finance minister, but Reigi preferred to act behind the scenes, as was the tradition of the Moroboshi Clan of Mutsu. "This is the worst incident so far, but not the only one, Yoiko-sama," he warned. "Ever since the news came down that the Oni were evacuating the city, too many people in Tomobiki have come to believe that there is nothing worth truly living for. Several students from Tomobiki High, all of whom were affiliated with the Stormtroopers, actually attempted suicide because they wouldn't have Redet to venerate anymore like those Niphentaxians did. Add that to the revelation of Ataru-kun being Negako-sama's last host and people feel as if something really bad is about to befall them. It's hard to explain; the only two mystics in this town are Sakurambō Hayao and his niece Sakura..."

"For more than understandable reasons, we don't trust either of them, Yoiko-san," Hiromi cut in.

Yonaga nodded before she shook her head. "Hai, I too sense something very foul in this town. As if the very wa of Tomobiki has risen in determination to restore what had once been. The kami who haunt this place clearly enjoyed the aliens' presence here, clearly uncaring of what those copycat aliens were prepared to do. No doubt, it must have been because of Ataru-san's making the Promise of Bunka-gonen. Having the Earth Angel in their midst would scare even the most powerful kami."

"Yeah, some things in this town really need to understand the new order of things," Zuikaku said, her eyes narrowed as she gazed out on the surrounding cityscape. "Maybe it would be best for Ataru-kun to go berserk on things as the Cyborg here. He didn't get much exercise going after those magicals that wanted to make Chibi ashes in his family crypt in Somerset." She sipped her tea. "Doubt we'll get new boatswain's mates out of people here beyond Rumiko-chan and Chigaiko-chan..."

A polite cough made people gaze upon an office lady standing nearby. "Forgive me, Hiromi-sama, but Inu Chigaiko-sama is waiting in the main foyer. Her parents just arranged with Onsen Mark-sensei to have her removed from Tomobiki High School and she wishes to join the support staff for the kanmusu even if Admiral Gotō hasn't approved her official transfer request."

"What's prompting her to move now, Yūko-san?" Hiromi asked.

"The incident this evening concerning the Mizunokōji, Hiromi-sama. There was a meeting called by Miyake Shinobu-san at the Dobu Salada for all members of the Rosebuds group a half-hour ago. She's trying to convince the girls of town to demand some action be done against Negako-sama and the kantai musume in response to the 'unprovoked attack' on Asuka-sama and her mother. She doesn't have details and none of the pro-kantai musume girls in her class are able to make her see reason."

Hiromi moaned. "Shinobu no baka...!"

"That is your brother's would-be wife, correct?" Yonaga asked.

A weary look responded. "Sometimes, Onii-san wonders if he was anything to her outside being a _**punching bag**_ , Yoiko-san."

"Anything else happening, Yūko?" Reigi asked.

Toshida Yūko smirked. "The Stormtroopers immediately organized a counter-meeting on the grounds of Tomobiki High School within minutes of the news of Shinobu-san's organizing the Rosebuds," she stated, glad that the Moroboshi Clan had invested heavily in military-grade electronic-countermeasures equipment to effectively eavesdrop on all local communications, especially anything over mobile phone frequencies. It was seen as legal given the demands on the clan by the Heavenly Sovereign, who had used Hiromi's ancestors as special field agents to ensure the full harmony of the realm from things that couldn't be handled by other authorities, from the shōgun and daimyō of old to the Prime Minister and the Diet today. Naturally, given how much the Moroboshi Clan now supported the kantai musume and their war against the Abyssals, the members of the Diet and Cabinet turned a blind eye to such electronics eavesdropping by the Inshin Group, grateful that there was SOME sort of powerful counter-balance to the heavy influence of the keiretsu on the national and local governments. "Naturally, all the boys rejoiced at what happened to Asuka-sama. Given her powers, she could easily have killed someone if she lost control of herself. But again, Aisuru Satoshi- _san_..." — the shipgirls were quick to note the derision in her voice on saying the honorific — "...is only concerned about having Redet Lum come back to Earth and having Ataru-sama forced to submit to her once more. Seeing Asuka-sama removed from influencing the situation deprives the 'anti-Lum' forces in town of a major weapon against 'pro-Lum' forces. Most of the boys are now fully supportive of a move to boycott all known Mizunokōji businesses and having that unleashed across the country." As the shipgirls blinked at that, Yūko chuckled. "Of course..."

"Megane and his fools don't realize that people OUTSIDE Tomobiki wouldn't give a shit about what they want," Hiromi finished as she tried not to look nauseous about what had just been revealed. "That stupid, selfish idiot...!"

"I can't believe mere _**high school rivalries**_ led to THIS!" Shōkaku exclaimed.

Hiromi nodded. "That was Lum's ultimate crime on everyone here, Kanako-san. She didn't realize how badly she affected people's lives in this town. The instant that something happened that brought an end to it, it would hurt people all..."

A brilliant flash of energy then flooded the picture windows off to her north, where Tomobiki High School was located. People cried out in shock on seeing that just as a deep _BOOM!_ echoed over the air, the sonic wave rattling the heavy windows that protected this building from all known possible attack, even stray fire from the private armed forces of the two wealthy families whose properties formed the western and northern borders of this part of Nishitōkyō. Heads snapped over to see a column of flame and smoke escape the grounds of the school close to the main entrance in the west wing facing the Mendō estate.

"Oh, hell!" Zuikaku exclaimed. "What the hell just happened?!"

"Open a window!" Yonaga barked as she took up her daikyū, standing up.

As the large carrier's rigging formed around her, two servants tapped controls to allow one of the windows to be swung open. The tower had been modified for special cases like this, allowing aircraft carriers to launch their planes from within the building in case of emergencies when they were visiting. Pushing all her strength into the draw to compensate for the lack of any wind in this place, Yonaga's eyes narrowed before she loosed two arrows, sending them soaring out into the night.

Two flashes of light later, two flights composed of three Aichi D3A1 dive bombers each raced into the evening over Tomobiki, their engines roaring. As the destroyers all got to their feet and brought out their own rigging while Yonaga's sister carriers got to their feet and grasped their own daikyū in case more planes were needed, the seventh carrier of Operation Z closed her eyes as she focused on the faerie spirits who were flying her dive bombers towards the scene of this possible attack...

« _ **Yonaga-sempai!**_ »

Yonaga perked. "Fubuki-san?!" the carrier replied vocally as well as over secure communications. "Where are you?!"

« _ **Just in front of Tomobiki High School, Sempai! The west entrance!**_ » the first of her class of destroyers called back, her voice shaky, but still firm with the hard discipline one would expect of a kanmusu who had seen battle many times. « _ **We need medics here, as many as can come! Some fragmentation bomb just went off in a crowd of Ataru-san's old classmates! Dozens are down and we've definitely got fatalities here! The centre of the explosion is close to the main doors!**_ »

« _ **Tenryū here, Yonaga!**_ » the voice of the lead of her class of light cruisers then piped in. No doubt, the members of Destroyer Division Six had come up from Yokosuka to join up with Yonaga and had met up with Fubuki. « _ **I recognize four of the fatalities! It's Megane and the three other idiots that formed the part of that Oni bitch's 'stormtrooper' club! Looks like whoever or whatever did this was aiming for them specifically! Gods! This is worse than the attack on Hiroshima...!**_ »

« _ **Tenryū-san! I found Fujinami Ryūnosuke! She's alright!**_ » Inazuma called out.

"All of you, keep radio discipline!" Yonaga barked. "Keep count of wounded and dead, but don't clutter the communications channels! Give reports to Tenryū so she can keep accurate count of the victims of this atrocity! Ōyodo, are you monitoring this?! We'll need assistance from the local authorities to keep the fatalities to a bare minimum and keep the crowds calm!"

« _ **Niiyodo here, Yonaga-san!**_ » came the reply from Yokosuka. « _ **Onē-sama is making the calls and getting a team mustered to head up to reinforce your task group! Teitoku just called the mayor of Nishitōkyō to get civil aide authorities alerted. The Ground Self-Defence Force garrison in Nerima just called in. They'll be sending field ambulance teams ASAP.**_ »

« _ **You're in charge of the scene, Captain**_ ,» Gotō Kiichi's voice cut in.

"Understood, Teitoku. Tenryū, take control of the scene until Shōkaku, Zuikaku, myself and our destroyer escort get there. We'll have three good and faithful friends from Iran with us as well. We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

« _ **Roger that, Yonaga.**_ »

"Yūdachi, can you hear me?"

« _ **Poi?!**_ »

"I have a special task for you, Kodachi-san," the carrier said as she waved the others to the emergency stairs to get to the ground floor faster. "There's a meeting of Ataru-san's old female classmates being held at some restaurant in Tomobiki called the Dobu Salada." _Why on Earth would some stupid fool actually call their establishment 'Sewage Salad'?_ the carrier then wondered before she added, "It's being led by Ataru-san's would-be 'girlfriend', Miyake Shinobu. According to Hiromi-san's friends at Toranoseishin Finances, they are moving to demand retribution concerning what was just done to Mizunokōji Asuka and her fool mother an hour ago by Negako-sama. This all has to do with all the mixed feelings people in this town have concerning the aliens that once lived here. In case they move to try to interrupt what we're doing to rescue those poor boys at Tomobiki High for whatever reason, I need you to deal with crowd control. Concentrate on Miyake herself first if need be."

« _ **Want me to go 'nightmare party' all over her, Yoiko-san?**_ »

Yonaga's smile turned icy. "Do as you feel necessary, my friend."

« _ **Poi!**_ »

The others dryly chuckled as they raced downstairs...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Rittmeister** — Ride Master, the German cavalry equivalent title of an army captain (NATO rank code OF-2); **Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine —** Imperial and Royal War Navy; **KJEI** — Short for **Kashti Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān** ("Ship of the Islamic Republic of Iran"), the name prefix for Iranian warships and shipgirls in this story; **al-Jinn** — Plural of " **al-Jinnī** " (genie/daemon); **Asāsiyyin** — Faithful to the Foundation (of Islam); **Marei'cha** — Literally "the one with whom you raise a child", this is the term to imply a married couple among Sagussans/Avalonians; **Wa** — Harmony.

To explain the rather complex nature of Arabic personal name structure, using the name of the leader of the Asāsiyyin, **Maryam bint-Hasan 'Amarraḥīm min-Alamūt al-Mūsa** :

 **Maryam** — Her given name ( _ism_ )  
 **bint-Hasan** — Her patronymic ( _nasab_ ), which implies that she now considers herself the spiritual daughter of **Hasan-e Sabbāh** (ca. 1034-1124)  
 **'Amarraḥīm** — Her style/clan name ( _laqab_ ), which is taken from the Ninety-Nine Names of God, the phrase itself meaning "servant of the All-Merciful"  
 **min-Alamūt** — Another style/clan name, this literally meaning "from Alamūt"  
 **al-Mūsa** — Her family name ( _nisbah_ )

Under most circumstances, _laqab_ and _nisbah_ are similar in use, thus would not be used in conjunction in a person's name.

As I do with other languages, I follow a more scientific form of Romanization for Arabic and Hebrew. To help people recognize the terms:

 **Makkah** — Mecca  
 **al-Madīnah al-Munawwarah —** Medina (literally "the radiant city")  
 **Yāfō —** Jaffa (the suburb of Tel Aviv)  
 **al-Masjid al-Ḥarām —** The Great Mosque of Mecca (literally "the sacred mosque")  
 **al-Ka'bah —** The Kaaba (literally "the cube")

 **Tōshō Daigongen** is the first Buddhist posthumous name for **Tokugawa Ieyasu** (1543-1616), the first shōgun of the Edo (or Tokugawa) era, given after his death. The first name translates "shining east". The last name translates "Great Gongen"; a **gongen** is a mortal man who obtained buddhahood that appeared on Earth in the shape of a kami to save sentient beings.

Shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **IRAN  
**_ **KJEI Ārtemis** (ex-HMS Sluys) — Ameretāt bint-Anushe min-Alamūt al-Ansāri (Isabella Ameretat Plantagenet)  
 **KJEI Babr** (ex-USS Zellars) — Bahār bint-Mina min-Alamūt al-'Asadi (Theresa Bahar Zellars)  
 **KJEI Palang** (ex-USS Stormes) — Parvāneh bint-Simin min-Alamūt Dāneshvar (Marilyn Parvaneh Stormes)

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Akashi —** Miyazato Arisa  
 **THG Yūbari —** Hachimori Yūka  
 **THG Kisaragi —** Kisaragi Kyōko


	10. The Final Break from The Circus

**_DISCLAIMER:_** ** _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_** **Copyright Act** ** _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, the Rāmen Nekohanten, Tuesday 23 May, sometime after dawn...**_

"We shouldn't have been surprised by this."

Hearing that cool assertion from Marubeya Momoe, Miyake Shinobu's head snapped up as she glared angrily at her classmate...before her body seemed to sag and she slumped in her chair, the warm rāmen which had been served to her slowly growing cold on the table. "I suppose so..." Moroboshi Ataru's former girlfriend quietly breathed out as she felt a new wave of sorrow and horror fill her heart as the gory scene she beheld hours before once Yūdachi had allowed everyone to come down from the Dobu Salada to view what had happened at Tomobiki High School prior to midnight replayed in her mind. Once the girls who had gathered there got their fill of the dead and wounded, they retreated to this restaurant, which had remained open to serve as a quick place for people to get snacks before they would return to their duties or go home for the day. "I mean, much that I know how much Megane and his friends were the ones behind bringing that taxi down, no one said anything..."

"No one was probably allowed to say anything, poi," a quiet voice mused from the counter. "Operational security and all that. Given that Ataru-kun had been fired back in time and sent to that Okusei planet by Nengmek'i-sama..."

Shinobu tried not to glare resentfully at Yūdachi, who was calmly replenishing her fuel bunkers with some choice rāmen which was being served to her by a happy staff, glad at last to be there for one of the great heroines of the Abyssal War. She then shuddered as her own mixed feelings for this destroyer-turned-teenage girl and all those like her flooded her heart. She always had issues with shipgirls. Never mind they being effectively _**metahumans**_ with their incredible physical strength and invulnerability, their spiritual relationship to their enemies had been a warning sign to the devout Catholic descent of Kagoshima that something wasn't right about them and they shouldn't be trusted under any circumstances. Never mind how much the man she once loved — and in some ways, still loved — had cared for the beautiful warrior nymphs from many nations that had come back from their watery graves to defend the nations of the world in their time of need...!

Yūdachi...

 _Hamamoto Kodachi..._

Ataru had been the one who had invented that nice, normal name for the fourth of the Shiratsuyu-class destroyers...

As he had done for hundreds of others...

The Letter...

Shinobu shook her head. She remembered reading the Letter to the _Yomiuri Shinbun_ that had been a cry from one fan of the kanmusu to see them better treated as human beings despite their being the only successful weapon systems available to help beat back the demons of the Abyss and save humanity as a whole. It had been remarkably well-written for something from a middle school sophomore, which made her instantly think Ataru had NOT written such a missive; after all, he never showed such poetry before and hadn't been the best scholar whatsoever. But he had written that letter and created those names; too many people knew that and the kanmusu loved the man for it. Realizing that made a familiar jolt of jealousy rip up her spine...before she felt melancholy descend on her heart, the same type of depression that first descended on her a month ago, squelching the outrage she felt on realizing that Ataru had willingly cared for other girls and not focused his attention on only just her. Learning Ataru had moved to "correct the mistake" in regards to his "wife" behind the backs of everyone...and having done that so _**masterfully**_ , doing it in a way that convinced Redet Lum to head home WILLINGLY...!

It was no wonder all the boys had reacted so badly to that.

But the rest of the world had reacted just as badly to their own mindless veneration of the warlord's daughter.

The puddles of blood and shattered body parts that had laid on the west lawn of Tomobiki High gave grim testament to that.

She jolted as the doorbell rang, echoed by the owner's call of "Irasshaimase!" to greet the new customer who just walked in. Turning back to her rāmen to finish off the meal, she moved to eat...before a gasp escaped Gekasawa Kumiko. "Ataru-kun!" she called out, making Shinobu look up to see Moroboshi Ataru standing there, dressed in a black gi with hakama trousers.

He wasn't alone.

"Ohayō, minna," he politely called out as people gaped in shock on seeing him, surprised to note that Tomobiki's once-most infamous resident had actually returned back to the city. They then blinked as he smiled at the brown-haired battleship now at his side. "Much that I know that you would have preferred to make breakfast for us, Tesoro, we all need the break," he then bade in a very kind voice, a voice none in Tomobiki had ever heard from the likes of Moroboshi Ataru.

"Sì," the third of the Littorio-class battleships said as they moved to sit beside Yūdachi by the counter. "Buongiorno, Kodachi."

"Poi!" the destroyer called back to Roma before she gazed on the owner. "Poi! Master! Ataru-kun's usual, times two!"

"Hai, Yūdachi-sama!" the owner called back with a cheery smile.

Seeing that, Shinobu felt her heart break as she moved to finish the rāmen.

 _Tesoro..._

Treasure.

What a man in Italy called his _**wife**_.

She didn't know if Ataru had done this on purpose...

Still, she needed to get away from this place. From him. And _**her**_...

She just wanted to get away from everything...

* * *

There were times that Ataru cursed having taken the Promise of Bunka-gonen.

It wasn't because his hormones went totally out of control once puberty struck, making him pursue any pretty face that crossed his path even in the face of two would-be "wives" willing to take a chance with him despite all his faults.

It wasn't because said promise, if not fulfilled, could have seen him KILLED by the mental "house guest" he had in his subconscious mind for a decade before a three millennia-old spirit dragon from another planet gave her another option.

No...

It was the almost-always turned-on ki senses he had been "blessed" with.

The accumulated knowledge of a THOUSAND years of martial arts skills, combat strategy and esoteric lore about the human body that had been permanently imprinted on his conscious mind when his adopted sister's soul was taken out.

The fact that no matter how much he wanted to go back to being "normal"...

...such was forever denied him for the rest of his very long life.

Case in point: Miyake Shinobu.

Truthfully, Ataru didn't see himself as HATING his oldest childhood friend.

He just didn't WANT her anywhere in his life anymore.

It wasn't because he didn't want to wish her ill.

No.

It was because he had been forced to _**grow up**_ in ways no person could imagine.

Shinobu hadn't done that.

Her ki signature and her emotions — _Thank you, Onē-san, for making me an adopted_ **Avalonian** _while you were at it!_ he mentally cursed — clearly showed him that she desperately wanted him to go back to being "normal".

And that was to make her feel as if life could go back to what _**she**_ perceived as "normal". Uncaring of what he might desire.

As she showed so well when they visited Inaba's "destiny management" dimension.

Another thing he had to thank Moroboshi Negako for.

Though this time, he had appreciated his adopted sister's warning.

Shinobu still thought she had every right in the world to dictate things to Ataru.

That wouldn't, couldn't be allowed to continue.

He was going to hurt her badly.

He had just done that by calling Roma his "treasure".

Now, he had to drive the nail in deep.

For her sake.

For the sake of the other people of Tomobiki.

And no matter what, he hated himself for it...

* * *

"What was that statement General Sherman made once, Roberta?"

Roma looked over. "What do you mean?"

"About how much the mass slaughter of the American Civil War affected him?"

As many of the people hearing this tensed at such a subject escaping _**Ataru**_ 's lips, the third of the Littorio-class battleships sighed. She had a good idea what he had in mind. Her lookouts had been watching the stupid girl who still thought it was her right to enforce her will on the man she loved. Yes, it was time for this particular brat to understand the reality of this situation and finally accept that she had no place in Ataru's life anymore. "'I regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair'," she quoted the first practitioner of total warfare. "'A kind of morning dash'." Sensing people wince in horror on hearing such a dark subject from her, Roma then sipped her tea. "'And it may be well that we become so hardened'."

"Was it as bad, Ataru?"

He gazed on Yūdachi. "What do you mean, Kodachi-chan?"

"As bad as Morningstar Plain?" the destroyer asked.

He considered that for a moment, ignoring the sucked-in breaths from many of his former classmates; thanks to what he had done to drive the point home to Redet Lum that she had no place in his life anymore, they all knew THAT phrase.

"Concentrated, Kodachi-chan...?" He considered that for a moment before he slowly nodded. "Yeah, it was just as bad. Proportionally, that is. Then again, the whole battlefield at Morningstar Plan was about fifteen-by-ten kilometres in size. Kyech and I managed to cover most of it in four hours, especially after I got my 'Kai' upgrade courtesy of the Master of Entropy." As people around him gargled on hearing him admit THAT, he casually shrugged. "Other that that..."

He then nodded his thanks as a shaking owner handed him his bowl of rāmen...

* * *

It was as if she had been stabbed in the heart.

Multiple times.

It didn't matter that she knew now he was doing this intentionally.

That he admitted THIS...!

 _ **Morningstar Plain.**_

At first, when she heard that phrase from Lum's cousin Redet Ten, Shinobu hadn't fully comprehended what he was talking about. Supposedly, the closest neighbours to the Terrans and the Neptunians, the Noukiites, had long suffered from a plague of bandits on many colony planets, from the three closest to Sol to other star systems, including those Uru possessed. Thanks to a necessarily harsh campaign to restore peace and good order among the defenceless farmers and other civilians of the Imperial Outmarches, "free warriors" were nominated by local governors to go out and put the bandits down. One of them was a remarkable woman whose wordy name was something Shinobu couldn't recall right now, but she knew the nickname.

The _**Dragonspeaker**_.

According to Lum (who had been driven to screaming tears when she first learned of this after she discovered something left behind in Ataru's empty bedroom when she got back to Earth after two weeks in the hospital in Onishuto), when he had been fired back in time and transported to the Noukiite colony world of Okusei by Nengmek'i a month ago, the Dragonspeaker found him in a spa village, all alone on an alien world. Sensing the presence of Imperial Special Agent #49 within his subconscious mind, the flame-haired beauty who made even the most sexy Klingon from _Star Trek_ look plain in comparison took Ataru under her wing and walked him to the capital city a week's travel away. There, a clone body could be made for Moroboshi Negako, thus seeing a two century-old promise finally fulfilled...with Ataru, her fifty-seventh host, actually _**surviving**_ it.

Six days later, when they were somewhere close to the capital, a massive army of SIXTY THOUSAND bandits ambushed the Dragonspeaker and her then-companion. After a battle that lasted all afternoon, that army had been slaughtered nearly to the last by the flame-haired free warrior...who, thanks to her being blessed by the very heavenly dragon that rescued Ataru from his "marriage" to Lum, had her blood augmented with power that made her a near-match to Earth's very own Jewel Warrior!

And while Shinobu found it hard to believe her once-rival's statement that Ataru had been in the very thick of that battle...

"How many did you kill, Ataru-kun?"

Shinobu winced on hearing Kumiko's sympathetic question...

...then she turned as white as a sheet on hearing his answer:

"Over a thousand, Gekasawa-san. I lost track in the midst of all those bodies."

As Kumiko gaped on noting another radical change in her former classmate's behaviour — he NEVER addressed any girl by family name! — he turned back to sip his tea, ignoring the scraped chair from Shinobu as she nearly ran out...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki High School, that moment...**_

"WHAT killed these idiots, Yūka?!"

Yūbari sighed. "Doubt you'd have ever heard of these things, Kathy-san," she admitted as she crossed her arms, shaking her head in sadness. "But it was three honest-to-goodness kamikaze ANDROIDS that did this!" She waved to the smouldering grass, burnt walls and shattered glass that marked where over a dozen boys had been butchered by a well-disguised bomb. Fortunately for the sensibilities of all the shipgirls who had responded to this madness hours before, the corpses had been collected and sent to the morgue, with the wounded now filling the intensive care ward of Nishitōkyō General Hospital as limbs were amputated and medical staff went out of their way to keep the list of fatalities at its current fifteen. "They were built to a Franklin-type design." As the second of the Iowa-class arched her eyebrow, the light cruiser added, "Originally created by a scientist named John Franklin for one of your spy agencies to serve as field agents. The project wasn't approved, but someone got hold of the specs, then replicated it." She shook her head. "We can't carry people on voyages..."

"But robots would be perfect," New Jersey finished. "Fuck! Especially if they were programmed to charge in here and blow themselves up before the stupid boys knew was was hitting them. It was those girls from Iran who brought them here?"

"Magically shrunken in mesonium crystals to keep them protected from any form of harm," Yūbari explained before she shrugged. "No doubt, people in the Iranian Ministry of Magical Affairs were involved with this to make sure it went through. It had to be the Revolutionary Guards that drove it, though. There's no way Maryam al-Mūsa would go along with this. Too damn sloppy in her eyes. You should have heard Negako-san cuss about it when she examined the blast marks."

The American battleship laughed. "Negako don't swear, Yūka!"

"In her own way, she does, Katharine-san."

Both turned as Yonaga came up. "Welcome to Terrorism 101, Yoiko," the American battleship said. "Enjoy the lesson?"

"It is one I might have done without," the seventh carrier of Operation Z said with a faint smile crossing her severe features. "Negako-sama has come up with a theory as to what motivated our friends in Tehrān to do such a thing."

"What's that, Yoiko-san?" Yūbari asked.

"The victims were the Oni's 'fan club'. The true target was that stupid child's so-called 'most faithful' on Phentax Two."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"I thought with that Ōgi kid out of the way, that stupid shit pile would collapse on itself once and for all time," Jersey protested.

"It is tottering towards final collapse, Katharine-san," Yonaga stated. "Negako-sama was just updated by the leader of the Avalonians on that factory satellite of theirs. They've been monitoring signals from that planet. It turns out that a religious cabal moved to seize power on Phentax Two to force the common folk to continue to worship the Oni as their chosen arahitogami. No doubt, when news of this got to Iran, leaders there decided the best way to cut the heart out of this beast..."

"Was to deprive them of their 'holy apostles'," Yūbari finished. "Shit! Mendō better watch himself. He's the fifth of that bunch according to that 'bible' of theirs. Even if Tennō got him to behave himself, he could still be hit."

"I doubt it, Yūka-san," the carrier noted. "With Elizabeth-san and her friends from Sweet Valley around to help us, plus their allies worldwide also blessed by the Forge of the Seekers, I doubt we need to fear Ōgi's disgusting hordes."

Jersey rolled her eyes. "Famous last words..."

"Excuse me."

The three shipgirls turned...

...then Yonaga bowed to the prematurely-aged woman who bore a close resemblance to the leader of Lum's Stormtroopers. "Aisuru no Kimi," she greeted Aisuru Rui with a classical court title, making the newcomer blush madly at such a polite form of address by this shipgirl samurai. "Please accept the deepest condolences of all of us in the Rengō Kantai at your unfortunate loss." She was quick to note Yūbari bowing to the older woman while Jersey gave her a perfect Annapolis salute.

Hearing that, Rui sighed. "Ugly as this will sound to you, Itō-taisa, I lost my son — many of us lost our sons — long before those people in Iran decided it was time for them to pay for what they unleashed because of that space-taxi." She shook her head. "I tried to discipline him. Tried to learn where he got the knowledge to bring that alien here to take him to that thing's home planet. He wouldn't listen to me. He was so infatuated with that alien brat that any possible horror could be unleashed as long as it made her happy. I can't count the times other parents — especially if they were from other schools — complained to me about how much Satoshi was trying to force everyone to be part of his 'club'." Shaking her head, she gazed at the place on the stairs leading to the main doors where Megane had been killed. "And all that to make poor Ataru-kun submit to that creature?! With _**that**_ time-bomb lurking in his mind?! Sakurambō Sakura told me about all the magical spells that went into that 'promise' that poor boy was tricked into making before he entered elementary school. If someone pushed it too far, Negako-sama would have been a lot more bloody than this! And it would have been my idiot boy's fault." A bitter smile then crossed her face. "Well, at least I have Tokiko-chan around thanks to what Ataru-kun and Negako-sama arranged before they left this place for Sasebo. She's got a much better head on her shoulders...even if she is a bōsōzoku at heart." As Jersey and Yūbari both snickered, Rui bowed to Yonaga. "Watch out for Ataru-kun, please. He's suffered enough because of his mother's greed and his father's refusal to put her into her place finally. I know Ansaldo-chūsa is here to be with him now..."

"He will not come to harm, Aisuru no Kimi," the carrier vowed, bowing. "As for that yūjo and her spineless husband, though..."

Rui chuckled. "She'll deserve it."

"That she will," Yūbari noted...

* * *

 _ **The Moroboshi home, that moment...**_

"...Aisuru Rui, mother of the late Aisuru Satoshi, the leader of the fan-club known commonly as 'Lum's Stormtroopers', has just met with aircraft carrier Yonaga, light cruiser Yūbari and the American battleship New Jersey at the scene of this horrid terrorist attack at Tomobiki High School," the NHK field reporter stated as the images of the wreckage played out over the screen. "No doubt, given how many of the parents of this district of Nishitōkyō have long come to despair over how many people were willing to do anything to please the Urusian warlord's daughter Redet Lum, people in Tomobiki are afraid of a potential follow-up attack on their children to 'make sure of it' and ensure Lum would never be safe..."

Seeing that, Moroboshi Kinshō shuddered. "I wish I never had him...!"

Even as that lament escaped her without any sort of comment by her husband Muchi — who was, as normal for him, behind the morning copy of the _Yomiuri Shinbun_ trying to ignore the chaos around him — a cold chill filled her heart.

Why wouldn't people open their eyes and see the _**truth**_...?

* * *

 _ **The Toranoseishin Finances Tower, breakfast...**_

"...more than happy to welcome you among our larger family, Inu-kun."

Hearing that, the rather plain-looking girl with the short-cut black hair and the dark brown eyes looked ready to break down and cry in relief. "Arigatō, Gotō-shōshō," Inu Chigaiko said as her sister Fujiko gave her a supportive hug. "Do we get a choice of who we get assigned specifically to, by the way? Ataru-kun never made that clear when he told me about this project."

"It's actually the first shipgirl on the list that gets the choice of special boatswain's mate," Ōyodo replied over the video conference line from Gotō Kiichi's office in Yokosuka. "In your case, the first girl on the list is Zuikaku."

Chigaiko blinked. "Suzue-san? She dated Ataru-kun a few times."

"When they were in Taranto together after we helped the locals clear out the Red Sea. This was before he got together with Roberta-san," the light cruiser who served as logistics chief for the shipgirls in Japan answered. "They're friends and rumour has it Suzue-san still holds a bit of a torch for Ataru-kun." She gave the former basketball team forward a knowing look. "Then again, I think I'm speaking about something quite similar when it comes to you, Chigaiko-chan?"

A flustered face responded. "Hai...!"

"Glad to see that not all the girls in that place are single-minded idiots," Gotō lamented. "Suzue-san should still be in town, so you can go speak to her right away, Inu-kun. Again, welcome aboard and we'll see you here later today."

"Hai, Teitoku!"

With that, the conference link was ended, allowing people to relax. "Well, that's good," Moroboshi Hiromi stated as she tapped controls on her special laptop computer — it was Avalonian in design, actually being called a "dataPADD" in tribute to the similar device from _Star Trek_ — to get links opened up to friends among the bioroids living on Earth and on the factory. "With you safely out of that place, I think we can finally wash our hands of those fools and get on with the rest of our lives."

"Some of the other girls might want to volunteer, Hiromi-san," Chigaiko warned.

Hiromi snorted. After her soul was allowed to be downloaded into her new body, Ataru's film replica got a chance to mind-meld with him to properly catch up with what had happened to her adopted brother over the years. She had quickly gained very negative opinions about everything and everyone in Tomobiki, especially her brother's former peers in Class 2-4. "If they wish to prove themselves worthy, they best lose those crushes on Shūtarō-san once and for all time," she stated. "I don't want that rich idiot to have any sort of moral influence on any of the kanmusu. Those girls have got enough on their minds at this time. They don't need to have that man try to pull moves on them. It could distract them from their duties."

Chigaiko smirked. Like her peers, she had been attracted to Mendō Shūtarō when he joined Class 1-4 the previous fall, shortly after Lum came into their lives. But in the wake of the Hallowe'en party where the Red Cloak had come to "haunt" the current student body, whatever respect she had for the scion of Japan's richest family vanished. After all, _**Moroboshi Ataru**_ remembered her name and had gladly said "hello" to her every day, even with that alien bitch trying to hog-tie him down like she did for almost a whole year. For all his power, wealth and suave behaviour, Mendō Shūtarō had never done that. Yes, it was ultimately because of that curse put on the Red Cloak — which reactivated itself when he visited, then locked on Ataru as its "victim" — but the fact that the man didn't sense what was going on with Chigaiko was one big vote against him.

Noting that Ataru's film replica sister had pretty much come down against him...

"Where are the others?" she then asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The replicas of the 'gang' from that film?"

Hiromi smiled. "Tachiko-san and the Stormtroopers' replicas now live with their parents. No doubt, Tokiko-san and her friends are busy consoling their parents over what happened. Saiko-san — Shinobu-san's replica — went down to Kagoshima to live with her grandmother Ebi. It was a relief; Obā-san was afraid Shinobu-san might be 'lost' in this place because of the weirdness that haunts this town. Danu-san is currently on Ceres, keeping watch over the 'monitors' that were based there by the Urusians." She gave Chigaiko a knowing look, winking. "They were all replaced by Avalonian clone replicas ten months ago to keep the information output to Onishuto controlled so that people didn't panic about the Abyssals."

A barked laugh answered her. "No wonder the stupid aliens bugged out of this town so fast! I've heard of the Yizibajohei!" That, Hiromi knew, was because of interviews made with Dean Raeburn during World War Two about the origins of her Power Jewel. "Given Chiyoko-san is pregnant with Richardson-shōshō's children, the idea of shipgirls mating with normal people must have made Redet and the rest of that crowd think our version of the Dawn of Power is around the corner."

Her host nodded. "That's..."

A knock echoed from the doorway. "Hey, Hiromi-chan!"

Hiromi and the Inu sisters looked over. "Ah, Suzue-san! Come in!"

Zuikaku smirked as she walked in. "Hey! You must be Chigaiko-chan! Ataru's told me a tonne about you! I'm Suzue!"

Introductions were made, then Chigaiko was quick to guide the carrier out of her host's office and to a nearby elevator to get to the ground floor so they could get something to eat. "Much that the people in this place do their best to keep everyone who works here fed, it's best to get to a good restaurant to top off your tanks before you head back to Yokosuka," Chigaiko advised, trying not to blush at the fact that Zuikaku had offered her arm to the former basketball team forward. She had taken her up on that. "Besides, given some of my 'friends' want me to get back on the team, the sooner they know I'm with you..."

"They're not harassing you about that, are they?" the carrier asked.

Eyes rolled in response. "Pretty much so. If they don't blame Ataru-kun for 'making me quit', they're crying about the lost chance to get to the prefecture finals this fall." Both girls then entered the elevator. "Stupid idiots!"

Zuikaku snorted. "You'll find idiots everywhere, Teitoku," she said as her own eyes sparkled with mirth at the idea of seeing a bunch of nominally mature young women crying their eyes out at the lost chance to become champions at their chosen game. Much that she didn't mind that type of competition, the younger of the Shōkaku-class armoured carriers knew things could get carried away if people didn't put controls over it. Given what happened to the woman beside her...

She blushed as Chigaiko's lips brushed her cheek. They then exchanged looks before Zuikaku blushed. "Chigaiko..."

"You are really cute when you blush like that," Chigaiko said.

The car reached the ground floor before the carrier could answer, the door then opening to reveal the main foyer of the tower. They walked out, heading to the northside entrance to get outside. Once they were past the portal, Zuikaku then winced slightly as she felt the difference of the wa in this town from what was inside the tower itself. "Damn! This place really is cursed, isn't it?" she hissed out as she felt the urge to summon her rigging and send out a patrol.

"You can sense it?" Chigaiko asked.

"Damn straight I do..."

"Oi! Yon-san!"

Chigaiko jolted on hearing that hated term that had been used by her former teammates on her for the months she had been touched by the curse, then she gave her current companion a curious look, completely ignoring the approaching captain of her old team, senior student Nagahama Aiko. "Matsubara-chūsa, shall we head over to the Nekohanten?" she politely asked as the raven-haired woman with the dark brown eyes stopped on seeing the carrier. "It has the best rāmen in town."

"Hai, Teitoku!" Zuikaku said as her eyes flicked to Aiko, making the basketball team leader wince on seeing that warning look.

With that, they headed towards the school. Aiko watched them go, then shook her head as she turned to head home...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki High School, an hour later...**_

"Ryūnosuke-san?"

Hearing that kind yet childish voice, Fujinami Ryūnosuke blinked before she looked up to see the fourth of the Akatsuki-class destroyers standing there, a cup of hot tea in hand and held out for her. Shaking her head as she tried not to dwell too much on the memories of watching her own father Fujimi get literally sliced to ribbons hours before when he tried to quell the riot on the west lawn, the tea shop owner's "son" from Chōshi on the Pacific coast of Chiba prefecture shakily nodded her head as she took the tea, then sipped from it. Seeing that, Inazuma smiled. "It'll be alright, Ryūnosuke-san," she said as she moved to sit beside the older girl on the east main entrance steps, well away from the crime scene on the other side. "No matter how badly he treated you, I'm sure your father would want you to go on and make the best life for yourself."

The tomboy blinked. "Who told you that? Moroboshi?"

"Hai!" the shipgirl known to Ataru as Akamatsu Inoue said with a nod. "Much that Ataru-san is angry at a lot of people now, he's not angry at you, Ryūnosuke-san. He may not say it now, but he'll be happy you're free of your father."

Ryūnosuke blinked. "I never thought that his mother actually _**abused**_ the guy."

"Words can hurt just as badly as a punch," Inazuma reported. "Negako-sensei told us this just before they went to Sano-wan to find Yonaga-sempai and bring her back to Japan. Ever since that meanie-meanie woman began treating Ataru-san bad because he wasn't his twin brother Kaeru-san, Ataru-san kept record of it in his _**real**_ diary. That was kept safe in the local branch of Inshin Bank here in town. He wrote nothing about it in the _**fake**_ diary that Lum-san and Shinobu-san and his own mother spied on from time to time." As Ryūnosuke gasped on hearing that — as a "holy friend" of Redet Lum's, the tomboy's diary had been copied and transformed into a "book" within the Niphentaxians' "bible", _The Book of Lum_ ; reading that had just embarrassed the hell out of her and totally transformed her attitudes towards the warlord's daughter from Uru — Inazuma sighed. "You're safe now, Ryūnosuke-san. Sure, it'll be hard now that you have to live on your own..."

Sensing the support the childish destroyer was giving her, the heiress of Hamachaya smiled as she reached over to rub the shipgirl's head. "So what's your real name? The one Moroboshi gave you after he wrote that letter?"

Inazuma nodded. "Akamatsu Inoue nanodesu."

"Akamatsu, huh?! Knew a family by that name back in Chōshi. I assume your sisters all got the same family name."

Another nod from the destroyer, then she pointed to her sisters, who were guarding the school grounds with their rigging out to ensure no one came in until it was declared secure and site control could be turned back to the Tōkyō Metropolitan Government Board of Education. "Tsukiko-chan," she said as she pointed to Akatsuki. "Himeko-chan," she then said as she indicated Hibiki. "And Ikue-chan," she then introduced Ikazuchi. "Tenryū-san is Shimosuwa Tamiyo, nanodesu."

Ryūnosuke looked to see the first of her class of light cruisers standing by the east gate entrance, currently chatting with some reporters, both local and foreign, as they got a briefing on what occurred here. "Your mom-boat, right?"

The destroyer flustered. "Tamiyo-san doesn't like being called that."

"It's what a lot of folks call her. But it's a good thing, too."

"Eh?"

"You guys go out there to fight those freaking yōma all the time. Risking your asses every time you deploy. You lost Kisaragi back when you went after Wake Island three years ago, then Shōhō going down in the Coral Sea before you wiped that princess on Midway off the damned map." The tomboy sighed. "That's what made Moroboshi write that letter, right? Because you were all being fed into the fucking meat-grinder without people realizing you were human deep down."

"It has to be done."

"You didn't volunteer for it, Inoue-san."

"I did."

Ryūnosuke gaped at her. "You DID?!"

The fourth of the Akatsuki-class nodded. "When they did the summoning ceremony for my sisters and I, they played the _Gunkan Kōshinkyoku_ to get our attention and let the magic that turned us into this work. Along the way, I heard the cries of the sailors that was on my namesake that was sunk at Second Iō-tō." She shook her head. "It was so horrible. Worlds worse than when Bonefish-san sank me back in 1944 and my crew nearly drowned before one of the Ryūseizen saved them."

"Like this Chennalton mentioned by Tennō in his Rescript concerning Yonaga? The one that helped her become a kanmusu?"

"Hai." Her eyes teared as she tried not to hug herself as the memories of her first day of life as a kanmusu came back to her with terrifying clarity. "I realized — when I could finally, really THINK for myself, of course! — that with all the people dying on the high seas, Chennalton-sensei and all her sisters couldn't save them all from those awful big bullies that were hurting people all over the world for whatever possessed them to do that. I realized I could help save them, so I came back. As did my sisters, too." She shook her head. "I just don't like bullies. Like those mean bullies who loved to hurt Ataru-san all the time."

Hearing that statement of childish devotion for a man who was probably the first person on Earth to truly see the kanmusu as what they truly were, Ryūnosuke nodded as she gently squeezed the destroyer's shoulder in support. Having not lived in Tomobiki when Lum was pressing her "marriage" and Ataru was effectively fighting her off in the face of a tidal wave of scorn from parents and peers alike, it didn't surprise the beach café tomboy that the fourth of the Akatsuki-class destroyers would look upon people from Moroboshi Kinshō to Aisuru Satoshi and his friends to Mendō Shūtarō — and yes, especially Miyake Shinobu and Redet Lum — as big, selfish bullies picking on a young man who had his imperfections, but only wanted to live his life as he chose to live it. Now with Ataru effectively free of Tomobiki, there was no hope for those who wanted him back here in some vain desire to get Lum back to force him to return. Not if they didn't want a tonne of shipgirls coming after them.

Not to mention certain governments who, as last night showed, decided the shenanigans in Tomobiki were to finally END!

"Yeah. Don't like them either," the tomboy then breathed out...

...before she jolted on hearing a scream from the other side of the school. "What the fuck was that?!" she demanded.

" _ **DETENTION! YOU WILL HAVE DETENTION FOR LIFE, MOROBOSHI-KUN!**_ "

Ryūnosuke groaned. "Oh, fuck! The Principal...!"

* * *

 _ **The other side of the school building...**_

"Mio amore, by what right does this child-abusing stronzo have saying that?"

The Principal — who looked ready to start frothing at the mouth as he glared murderously at Moroboshi Ataru, his glasses glittering in the morning light as he tried not to lunge over to grab the younger man by the throat and strangle him for what he had done to his beloved friend Kotatsuneko a month ago — paused in his ranting to gaze upon the beautiful woman with glasses standing beside his school's most (in)famous student. "Eh?! You are not Lum-kun! Where is Lum-kun, Moroboshi-kun?!" he then snarled as he glared once more at Ataru. "You've done it again, haven't you, Moroboshi-kun?! You go and break that poor girl's heart by tricking other poor girls like this lady here into thinking you're not married to her! How...!"

"Teitoku."

The elderly school administrator froze on hearing that Arctic-cold voice literally blast past him from behind, then he slowly turned...before his eyes went up to let him gaze upon the face of the seventh carrier of Operation Z. A carrier who clearly did not look impressed on seeing such a show of worthless bluster by a man who's sanity could now be seen as questionable at best. "Buongiorno, Capitano Itō," Roma greeted Yonaga with a polite bow of her head and a smile that didn't reflect in her brown eyes. "This porco zio actually presumes he has the right to order my beloved around. A man who willingly answered the call of Sua Maestà Imperiale, il Sovrano Celeste, to come aid us in our righteous war against the dark demons of the Abyss." At Yonaga's delighted smile on hearing the third of the Littorio-class battleships address the Heavenly Sovereign with his proper title and honorific in her native language, Roma added, "He presumes my beloved is still a student at this worthless pile of merde when he had been legally removed by Grandemaestro Moroboshi Negako, his TRUE legal guardian, a month ago..."

" _ **I DID NOT AUTHORIZE THAT!**_ " the Principal shrieked out.

"Hey, Moroboshi!"

Ataru blinked, then he looked left...

...before a barked laugh escaped him. "Oh, my! The _**pedophile**_ returns!"

Shocked gasps escaped the small crowd of people who had gathered by the west gate on hearing the Principal launch his mindless tirade at Ataru, they they focused on the middle-aged man in the rumpled overcoat standing nearby, who had been gazing on his former student with terrible anger...before Ataru's statement caused him to come up short. As Kuribayashi Sanjurō sputtered on realizing that he was being accused of something awfully serious in front of a small crowd of former students behind him, Roma blinked. "What was that, mio amore?" she wondered as her body came aflame with outrage, her rigging forming to allow her to bring all nine of her main cannons to bear on a now white-faced substitute teacher. "You say this stronzo LOVES to attack innocent women?!" she snarled as those nine 381 millimetre cannons locked on his head.

"Well, I'm not too sure about attacking innocent women, Tesoro," Ataru calmly said as he fixed his old tormentor with a smirk that promised a lot of embarrassment and public shame now coming. "But he certainly loved to mentally _**undress**_ girls. Like he did when it came to my so-called 'wife' when she was living here. This was when he came here to serve as disciplinary teacher, like that idiot Ninomiya that haunted Fūrinkan High did...until Kasumi-chan _**terminally**_ took care of her yesterday."

"You SHUT UP, you stupid bastard!" Kuribayashi snapped. "Once we get you away from these freaky things, I'll put you through so much punishment that you'll wish that Lum-chan was back here! You think you can get away with all...URRRRK!"

That was courtesy of the VERY sharp katana which was now pressed on his throat thanks to a certain tomboyish light cruiser. "Hi," the friendly voice of the first of her class then echoed in the teacher's ear, making him nearly soil himself. "I'm Tenryū." A throaty chuckle escaped her as Kuribayashi slowly turned to gaze into Tenryū's face, her left eye covered by that strange patch. "Are you scared?" she then asked before that cold smile turned into a look of unholy fury. "You better be...!"

A wailing scream then echoed over the school grounds...

* * *

 _ **An hour later...**_

"Detention...detention for life..."

"Is there any hope for him, Negako-sama?"

Moroboshi Negako shook her head as she stood up, nodding to the two Ground Self-Defence Force medics to carry the babbling Principal away on a stretcher. Kuribayashi Sanjurō had been chased off by a flock of very angry parents fearing for his life. They had stormed to the school to ensure their poor daughters would never be threatened by such a man. Negako knew that the roving disciplinary teacher hadn't behaved inappropriately with any female student under his charge in the years he had actually moved from school to school to deal with problem issues. However, his presence in Tomobiki High School would do far more harm than good as he tried to enforce his own brand of discipline on people there when the true target of his ire was in Sasebo of all places. "No, Mark," the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū stated as she came over to stand close to Onsen Mark, who learned he had now been promoted to the position of principal of Tomobiki High by the local school superintendent. However, due to the damage done by the Iranian-built fembots last night, the school itself would be closed until after summer vacation to ensure proper repairs were done. "Like many who live in Tomobiki, he was swept away by the wa of the town as it altered itself due to Lum's presence to better accommodate her and all who came after her, mostly likely influenced by spiritual oni who saw her as a potential mortal avatar. Once Lum was removed from Tomobiki, he became badly affected by her 'loss' and how much the wa of Tomobiki began to struggle to restore things to 'normal'. When Ataru exorcised Kotatsuneko with a soulsword after he moved his belongings out of his parents' home, that proved too much for him to take."

The gruff now-principal grimly nodded. "Well, that's good. I never really cared for some of the stunts he pulled on the students, especially those 'physicals' he loved to unleash on everyone all the time. The kids should be happy about that."

"Fucking damned straight about that."

He turned as Ryūnosuke came up, accompanied by Inazuma. "Became a 'special boatswain's mate', Fujinami-kun?"

That made the tomboy bluster. "I don't th-think I could d-do that..."

"That, Ryūnosuke, you must unlearn."

That was Negako, who was giving the other woman a knowing look. Seeing this, the fourth of the Akatsuki-class destroyers blinked. "Ano, Sensei, could Ryūnosuke-san come to live with us at the Naval District? She can set up Hamachaya there and finally learn what it means to be a girl and all that." As the tomboy gaped at her new friend's willingness to give her a hand in charting a path to a better future, Inazuma gazed at Negako. "She shouldn't live in a school anymore!"

"Agreed, Inazuma-chan," Onsen stated before he gazed on Ryūnosuke. "I never said it before because I couldn't really do anything about it, but I never liked the idea of you living in a converted storage room, Fujinami-kun."

"Then she will come to Yokosuka," Negako declared, which made Inazuma whoop in delight and Onsen nod in approval. As Ryūnosuke gaped at such a sudden decision, the ninjutsu grandmaster added, "We will have personnel from 'W' Commando come here to move your belongings to the empty cruiser barracks there so you can settle down quickly. Mark, the paperwork for Ryūnosuke's transfer will be given to the education board as soon as I have Kiichi's staff draft it..."

"Oi! Oi! OI!" Ryūnosuke barked out. "Whoa! This is WAY too fast...!"

"Ryūnosuke, do you care for the smell?"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

The tomboy blanched. Yes, the smell wasn't as bad as it was after midnight, just as the military personnel from Nerima had begun the gristly cleanup of the corpses that had been left behind by those exploding fembot things, but it was still there. The miasma stench lurked in her nostrils, trying to nauseate her relentlessly, like the big waves she used to scream at when she had lived in Chōshi and her father tried to force the kami of the seas to calm down so they could have people come to Hamachaya. Shuddering as she considered that, she then slowly nodded. "Yeah, you got a point there, Negako-san..."

"Consider this also, Fujinami-kun," Onsen added as he gave the tomboy a sympathetic look. "Did any of the girls from your class, even Miyake-kun, offer you a place to stay when the news got out about your father just before midnight? They were standing there by the west gate for hours before they headed over to the Nekohanten to get something to eat. Did any of them come in to see how you were doing? I'm sure Yūdachi-sama would have let them through if they asked her."

That made Ryūnosuke come up short before she shook her head. "It ain't Shinobu-san's fault, Sensei! She's been really rattled badly 'cause of what she's heard happen to Negako-san's brother. I'm not angry at her..."

Onsen nodded. "That's good. But she should have thought about it." He gazed at the west gate, which was being watched over by New Jersey, who was currently chatting with some reporters. There was no sign of any girl who attended Tomobiki High. "Where is she? Yes, she's been affected because of Moroboshi's transformation, but I know she cares for you a lot."

"Partially, that's my fault, Sensei."

Everyone turned as Ataru came up, his arm being held by Roma. "Moroboshi," the new principal of Tomobiki High stated before he bowed to the battleship now at his side. "Roma-sama, welcome back to Japan. It's good to have you here."

"Grazie, Principessa Onsen," the third of the Littorio-class stated with a polite bow of her head even if it was obvious she didn't trust him. "Given that Ataru was a little lonely without me, it was an easy decision to make, never mind what happened to the soon-to-be Signora Richardson." As Inazuma giggled on hearing that, Roma sighed. "I would like to congratulate you for your promotion to your current office. When Ataru told me of all the horror stories concerning your predecessor, I'm sure that you'll be like a cleansing mistral to all the insanity that's haunted this place." As Onsen puffed with pride on hearing that compliment, the brown-haired battleship added, "Even if the alien monster is finally gone, it still desperately needs it."

Hearing that made the new principal nod in grim understanding. It had always been said that shipgirls, regardless of their country of origin, were spiritual beings who could sense things that no normal person could pick up on, things only the most powerful metahuman such as Dean Raeburn, Jessica Dover or Heather Thompkins could detect. As Sakurambō Sakura once confessed to him a week ago when they went to a yatai to discuss Ataru's departure for Sasebo, part of the reason leaders of the hidden magical enclaves scattered all over Earth had such an issue concerning shipgirls was that they were reintroducing "sensitive" topics to normal common discourse that would have once seen squadrons of memory-altering specialists — "obliviators" to use the European title — sweep in to keep the normal people ignorant of things they didn't "deserve" to know. While such would have benefited all on both sides of that divide back in the days of the Tokugawa Bafuku, technology and scientific study had advanced far too much. What one might call "magic" in one place was seen as "applied metaphysics" in another. The sooner both were brought back together, the better. Given what he had seen in the last year concerning aliens and obvious bouts of magic, Onsen knew that the sooner that secrecy statute was brought down, the better for all humanity.

Especially with what he had been hearing from Tomobiki's just-revealed large population of Avalonian bioroids...

"Well, for that, we can thank Negako-sama's friends among the Yizibajohei," he then noted before he gave Ataru a knowing look. "Try not to make a mess of things in Sasebo, Moroboshi. Good luck to you, Fujinami-kun." With that, he headed off.

Ataru remained quiet as he left even if Roma's teeth gnashed at that veiled insult from the new principal. "Tesoro, relax," he tenderly bade. "I wasn't any sort of angel back when I had Onē-san residing in my subconscious mind."

A snort escaped her. "He still should have been more polite, mio amore."

"It doesn't matter," he advised. "He's out of my life forever, as are the other idiots who worked in this place. The people we wanted to help out of here are out of here. As for the rest, they have to save themselves now."

Roma smirked. "True..."

"Lady Negako?"

Negako turned as a team of three Canadian magical infantry soldiers, a female corporal and two male privates — in the Royal Regiment of Canadian Foresters, those at the lowest non-commissioned pay grade were always given the rank title "Forester" — came up to join them, having apparated themselves in by the gymnasium and walked over; even if Canada was becoming a more open society when it came to magic, old habits were still hard to break. "Stephanie," the ninjutsu grandmaster addressed the section chief, Corporal Stephanie McCann of Old Crow in the northern part of the Yukon. "This is Fujinami Ryūnosuke," she then said as she indicated the tomboy in question. "She will be joining us in Yokosuka. Her personal belongings are on the ground floor in the central wing, the southside storage room. Have them transported to the cruiser quarters at the Naval District, the empty wing close to where Tamiyo and Tadako reside in. Do it now."

"Yes, ma'am," McCann said with a proper salute before she gazed on Ryūnosuke. "Don't you worry about a thing, Miss Fujinami. We'll get it all down there intact and even in better shape than it was when you moved it here from Chōshi."

"You guys don't mind doing that?" Ryūnosuke asked.

"Considering the crap you've gone through since you moved to this place — hell, in your case, since after your mother died — you deserve it, ma'am," one of the two foresters who came with McCann, Forester John Boot of Forty Mile near the Alaska border northwest of Dawson City, said with a lanky smile that instantly made Ryūnosuke think of a big teddy bear, like the type she once had as a baby that her father would later destroy for it being too "girly" for his "son". As the others save Negako laughed or chuckled at that comment, the large and muscular blond man waved her towards the south side of the main building. "Here. We'll go this way and use our own 'door' to get at your stuff. No sense in dealing with that smell."

"I'll help!" Inazuma called out.

Ryūnosuke laughed as she bade the three Canadians and the young destroyer to come with her around the southwest wing so they could get into the hollow close to her current residence. Watching them go, Ataru sighed. "When are you going to breech the subject of asexuality to her, Onē-san?" he wondered. "Much that I know that Tamiyo-chan wouldn't do anything with her without her accepting it, I doubt that Ryū-chan would escape the interest of some of the cruisers down there."

"She wishes to be a girl in mind and soul as much as she is in body, Ataru," Negako stated. "While I can understand your desire to not be forced to aid people who wounded you in the past, Ryūnosuke was never one of them. Besides, doing this will force people who remain behind — especially Shūtarō and Shinobu — to finally realize their worldview has no place in this life and make them properly mature as they should have matured all along. This is our clan's duty in the end."

He nodded. "Yeah..."

 _ **Boy...he's a boy...you'll never pervert him...!**_

Ataru perked, then he smirked. " **Thank you** ," he hissed as his left eye glowed just as ki boiled around his right hand. " _ **Kontō!**_ "

The energy katana formed in his hand as he pivoted away from Roma in a perfect ballerina spin, doing a sweeping side cut that lanced through the misty ghost that had just appeared behind him. Before what remained of the mortal spirit of Fujinami Fujimi could get clear of the soulsword, the blade lanced into where his liver was and cut him right in half. A howling scream escaped him before the image faded as the mystical energies that had kept his spirit intact in this life were shredded.

"Leave us, yōma," an icy cold voice then declared as the shrieking spirit of the late owner of the Hamachaya forever faded from this life. "Haunt your _**daughter**_ no more. Know that your perversions on her will never corrupt her again."

"That was a soulsword?!"

Ataru perked, then he looked left towards the west gate...

...before he dispersed his blade, bowing politely to the two women who were now standing nearby. Both of them had press badges with their names — **ARLENE SPENCER** and **LIA MANDEL** — on their jackets, the usual equipment one would expect of field agents of the fourth estate slung around their tops. Arlene Spencer was an incredibly beautiful woman in her early thirties, with sun-bleached blonde hair and deep blue eyes, a woman who was obviously used to the centre of attention wherever she went. Lia Mandel was as much a tomboy as Fujinami Ryūnosuke and looked as if she had seen far too much in her life, with short-cropped brown hair and grey-green eyes that seemed a mixture of an angry sea and a stormy sky. She was muscular, as solid as a battleship. She was also hopelessly in love with the fashion model standing beside her.

Her ki also spoke of several past acts of murder.

 _Terrorist —_ **former** _terrorist! — striving to make herself 'normal' again_ , Ataru mused to himself. _Cute...!_

"It is a soulsword, madame," Yonaga stated. "Who are you?"

"Arlene Spencer, Captain Itō. _Mainichi Shinbun_ ," the pretty reporter introduced herself, then she indicated her companion. "Lia Mandel, _New York Times_. We're part of a joint media pool based in Tōkyō reporting on the war."

"Pleased," the tomboy added with a curt bow of her head.

Yonaga returned that bow with a nod and slightly narrowed eyes. For an American, such an action would be difficult to detect. For native Japanese, it was a loud warning signal. She could sense something really off about Lia Mandel. "I assume the atrocity that happened here last night brought you both here, ladies," she said as she waved to the wrecked school front.

"It did," Lia stated. "How do you feel about this, Ataru?"

Ataru blinked as his own empathy and ki senses picked up on her emotions. Even if she worked for one of the mainstream worldwide newspapers, this woman wouldn't mind a little sensationalism for the story she was being asked to write on. "Both relief and anger, Sensei," he explained. "Anger that someone presumed they had a right to execute over a dozen of my former schoolmates just because four of them made a big mistake with their hormones a year ago — a mistake I was involved in as you'll know — and made to pay for that with their _**lives**_. Right now, fourteen families are mourning lost sons. We're well away from any open ocean, so it couldn't have been the Abyssals. Since it was Satoshi and his friends who were at Ground Zero of the attack, it had to have been from one of the countries of OPEC who nearly lost everything because of that space-taxi."

"You were exonerated of that action because of your being Ms. Negako's fifty-seventh host since you turned seven," Lia noted. "What of those other boys? These 'stormtroopers' a lot of people in this town and elsewhere complained of?"

"For that, you came blame whoever it was in government who decided to severely edit the flow of news concerning the outside world into Tomobiki over the last year," he answered as he crossed his arms. "I can understand trying to keep secret the whole mess with the Abyssals to people like my 'wife' and her friends when they were living in town. Given what the Yizibajohei did to the Urusians in the Mother of All Fight Scenes over two centuries ago, that's understandable. And given how often Lum's 'cures' for various things actually backfired, I can understand people not wanting the aliens to try to 'help' us fight those things. At the same time, no one bothered to take Satoshi or his friends aside to make them see what they did wrong. No one did that to me until I got to Okusei after I took my little time trip. After I reported what happened in that incident to the world's intelligence agencies after I went to live in Taranto, I'm sure someone decided it was time to teach a harsh lesson."

"Which, sadly, some in this town may still not comprehend," Yonaga warned.

Arlene perked. "What do you mean by that, Captain Itō?"

"Aisuru Satoshi's mother was here earlier, madame," the carrier coldly reported. "She came to see what happened ultimately because of her son's obsession with the monster that imposed herself on my navigation officer's grandnephew." She indicated Ataru with a wave of her hand. "She confessed to me that she felt she had forever lost her child because of that creature's presence in this town. Many of those who have lost children or now have to deal with their being in the hospital due to injuries feel the same thing. Much that I care not for such an attack on defenceless civilians carried out by agents of government when we should be allied against the true foe, I can understand why some people would want to see justice done. Fortunately, that taxi driver's co-workers never succeeded in their theft of our precious commodity; one of the Yizibajohei now resident on Earth was able to chase them off and see those supplies restored to their place of origin with no harm to the environment."

"So it was flat-out murder, you mean?" Lia asked.

"Indeed it was, madame."

"Did you want this, Ataru?"

"No," Ataru said with a light smile. "I'm borrowing a strategy that the Americans employed against us in the recent world war. Depriving them of my 'wife' and making sure she can never come back would have been punishment enough. Let them 'wither on the vine' as was done at places such as Rabaul and let them find out how ugly Life can be in the end. That would have hurt them in ways I could never have done with them." He shrugged. "Sadly, someone else had other ideas."

"Will they be punished?" Arlene asked. "Rumours are getting out concerning the true reach of your family's influence, Ataru, not to mention your family's working relationship with His Imperial Majesty given what Lady Negako here did back at the end of the Greater East Asia War when His Imperial Majesty's father put out the call to lay down arms. You may not have the wealth the Mendō or Mizunokōji possess, but you can hurt people in ways they'll never see coming." As he gave her a look, she smirked. "Your giving back the Presidential Medal of Freedom and those other medals you received because you didn't 'complete the mission' in this town — two years ago in your personal timeline, I believe? — spoke volumes." She gazed to the north towards where Ataru once resided. "I assume the break with your parents is being done under that same strategy?"

"They will grow old and die alone, Sensei. You can quote me on that."

"We will," Lia vowed with a delighted smile.

"You may also quote me, madame," Yonaga stated. "If either of those two decide to do something that threatens anyone in some vain hope of getting that alien monster back, I will deliver Tennō's justice to them." She patted her katana in emphasis.

The woman born as Cecilia Drummond in Cleveland back in the days when it was seen as somewhat fashionable to actually join radical left-wing terrorist groups to fight for a better future for all humanity then smirked. "I've heard how good you are with that katana," she said as she indicated that beautiful blade. "It's a wonder that Commander Yamamoto's daughter didn't totally freak out and flee back to Dutch Harbour when you finally came back to Japan, Captain."

"Are you aware of Reiko-san's son?"

"The so-called 'boy who lived' Britain's wand-magicals think is the third coming of Merlin?" Lia then asked as Arlene giggled.

"You know of them, Signora Mandel?" Roma asked.

"They may have been good hiding the locations of those places years ago, Commander Ansaldo, but they're not as smart about it as they like to think they are," Lia answered. "Harry Potter is quite well known there. That's according to co-workers in country who help run the 'Magic Watch' websites on the Internet. I heard their ministry tried to ignore what Field Marshal Yomigawa did for him, just before Commander Yamamoto adopted Hoppō. I take it you people didn't care for that."

"It has been permanently dealt with," Yonaga stated. "Young Harry will return to Japan to be with his mother when the school term ends next month. Those who tried to take him away from Reiko-san have either paid for their stupidity with their lives and magic...or woke up to the truth of what Yomigawa-gensui did for Reiko-san and her son at Stonehenge, accepted that Magic Itself declared the adoption proper, then backed off. Since Harry showed proper care for his peers whose fathers had acted in such a manner, he has won considerable allies within the House of Lords Wizengamot. I'm sure now that fool Cornelius Fudge is out of the way, a much more temperate person will be made Her Majesty's Minister for Magic."

"Hopefully Amelia Bones," Arlene noted.

"Susan-san's aunt?" Yonaga asked.

"Same person, Captain. She's allied now with Headmaster Dumbledore in helping everyone in the country prepare for the day the Statute finally falls and they can finally stop in-breeding themselves into 'squibs' like they've done in places."

"How can you get away with this?"

That was Ataru. "Talking about magicals?" Lia asked. "Well, first of all, the Eight Commanderies and the people who went to Dejima understand that they all legally answer to your Heavenly Sovereign. He released an Imperial Rescript declaring Japan was now at war with the Abyssals. They were legally obliged to obey that command and move to defend the country, which they've done really well even with all the damned losses that brought the Foresters into the situation, then the shipgirls when Negi Springfield got involved. We in the press don't consider it responsible to blare out that information in such a way that would get idiots out with pitchforks to unleash the Salem Witch Trials; I know how fanatic certain parts of the Department of Magic can be when it comes to keeping things secret from 'no-majs', but they slip up as badly as people in Europe have done. People here in Japan are more sensible." She gazed out to the west, picking out the distant peaks of the hills that formed the western border of Metropolitan Tōkyō. "Then again, this country tends to force that, I think. Just like in other countries."

Arlene nodded. "So what happens now?" she asked. "I saw three members of the Royal Canadian Foresters with your friend Fujinami Ryūnosuke, Ataru. What's going to happen to her? With her father gone, she can finally be a girl in spirit."

"She will be moved to Yokosuka and allowed to reside there as she moves to restore some sense of order in her life, Arlene. Mark did not approve of her residing in the school building and since there is no one in the city who is willing to support her, she will be taken under the overall care of the Self-Defence Forces," Negako stated. "If I deem her ready, I will continue her training in the martial arts; despite his many shortcomings, Fujimi was a good teacher in that regard. Will she be elected as a 'special boatswain's mate' to one of the kantai musume based there? That is up to them as it should always be."

"That's good," Lia muttered. "Wouldn't surprise me if she turns out asexual."

"Like Jughead Jones is shown in Archie Comics these days?" Ataru asked.

"Damn straight..."

"'Asexual'?" Yonaga asked, her eyebrow arching.

"I will explain, Yoiko," Negako promised...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **(name) no Kimi** — An honorific suffix that denotes a lord or lady of the Imperial court, which is not used in common-day discourse save for personal romantic letters in the same vein as _The Tale of Genji_ ; **Bōsōzoku** — Literally "running out-of-control (of vehicles) tribe", the term normally applied to motorcycle gangs; **Chūsa** — Navy commander/Army lieutenant colonel/Air force wing commander (NATO rank code OF-4); **dataPADD** — Literally "data personal archival display device"; **Yon-san** — Miss No. 4; **Gunkan Kōshinkyoku** — Literally "warship march", the official march-past of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the past and the Maritime Self-Defence Force today; **Stronzo** — Asshole; **Porco Zio** — A minced oath based on the phrase _porco Dio_ ("God is a pig") used by Italians so as to not bring insult to God; **Sua Maestà Imperiale, il Sovrano Celeste** — His Imperial Majesty, the Heavenly Sovereign; **Merde** — Shit; **Grazie** — Thank you; **Principessa** — Principal; **Mistral** — A strong and cold northwesterly wind which blows across the Mediterranean from the Rhône Valley of France.

 **Kuribayashi Sanjurō** is a one-off _Yatsura_ anime character who only appeared in the first half of the sixteenth anime episode.

 **Arlene Spencer** and **Lia Mandel** ( _née_ **Cecilia Drummond** ) were two characters from _Revenge of the Seventh Carrier_.

And the shipgirl mentioned here:

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Shōhō** — Takasaki Shōko


	11. New Admirals for the Shipgirls

**_DISCLAIMER:_** ** _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_** **Copyright Act** ** _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, the Rāmen Nekohanten, Tuesday 23 May, an hour after breakfast...**_

"Fucking shitty admirals! How could they DO that to those girls?!"

Moroboshi Ataru smirked on hearing that ripe oath from the eighth of the Ayanami-class destroyers. As the other kanmusu seated around the tables save Yonaga laughed or giggled at that exclamation, Moroboshi Negako took a deep breath. They just received an update from Gotō Kiichi concerning the state of three Iranian destroyers who came to Tomobiki, being the unknown carriers of magically-shrunken kamikaze "fembots" which had been used to kill fourteen innocent boys and one middle-aged man at Tomobiki High the previous evening. Fortunately, they had been escorted to Yokota Air Base in Fussen west of Nishitōkyō to be flown back to their home country. Also fortunately for Ārtemis, Babr and Palang, they had not been told the truth about the end-game of their mission; that would be left for the Asāsiyyin to deal with when they got home.

"Calm yourself, Akemi," the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū stated before sipping her tea. "Yes, the actions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was deplorable. I have spoken to Maryam about this. Those who took advantage of Ameretāt, Bahār and Parvāneh in such a manner will be properly punished. This was never approved by 'Ali Khāmenei, so they will have to face punishment for defying their nation's supreme leader, both on the magical AND the normal side."

"Do not be surprised at such an act by those leicheblut Schweinehunde, Sensei," a woman then spoke up from nearby, her Japanese perfect even if her tones were flavoured by the World War Two-era Eastphalian accent she was born with. "Those Persische Drecksauen think they are the kings of the world because they have such a 'refined' view of how God views Creation. Much that Islam does have its many wonderful points, that they refused all these years to accept that there has to be a firm separation between faith and politics will see them left in the dust when our Avalonianer friends finally persuade the blauhäutige hirnlose Ochsen on Dominos to stop throwing money away and give us their border planets."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Margareta...?" a wide-eyed Negako whispered before she looked over.

As the kanmusu all gaped on seeing how surprised Negako was — it seemed until now that NOTHING could shake the likes of her! — Ataru gazed over to see a woman a little shorter than him seated at a nearby table, enjoying some rāmen. She was in the grey waist-length jacket and black trousers of a modern German gebirgsjäger. Her grey bergmütze was on the table nearby, though it didn't have the beautiful edelweiß on a green circle badge of that nation's mountain infantry fighters. What was there and on her left jacket sleeve caused Yonaga to gape: A black disk with the divided circle-in-a-triangle symbol in white of the infamous Heiligtümer des Todes, three coveted objects said to be created by Death Itself — in truth, Negako knew, those three items had been created on a lark by the immortal Pomeranian baron known these days as Josef Wilhelm _Freiherr_ von Taserich of Rügen, the infamous Undying Lord who was the creator of the Übermenschen — that had enticed European wand-wizards for centuries. The carrier's eyes then went to the blonde, green-eyed woman's "salad bowl" of medals to read what was there. Of course, the silver-trimmed cross pattée of the first class Iron Cross from the 1939 series was in the exact centre of her left breast pocket, that framed at the lower corners of the pocket with a silver Wound Badge and the World War Two-era "jump wings" of a military parachute infantry soldier. The undress ribbon of the second class Iron Cross was wrapped around the top button of her jacket, the ribbon folded under the flap. She also had a badge resembling two crossed wands in a wreath of laurel above her undress ribbons, which formed two rows in a two-over-four format.

Wrapped around her neck were two other medals.

The shipgirls recognized them both:

The Orden Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds, Germany's highest magical award for bravery and merit...

...and the _**Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds**_!

"Holy fucking shit...!" Akebono gasped.

"Poi...!" Yūdachi breathed out in awe.

"Damn! She's seen some serious fighting...!" Tenryū hissed.

Yonaga shook her head. "Sturmscharführerin Margareta Hecht, I presume."

That made the native of Gardelegen in modern-day Saxony-Anhalt wince. "Please, Frau Kapitän Itō, I prefer the modern military rank, not what that Hurensohn Himmler came up with. If you must, I'm addressed as 'Oberstabsfeldwebel'."

The carrier nodded. "Um, no offence, Hecht-jōkyūjunshikan, but aren't you supposed to be DEAD?!" Ataru then demanded.

"Looks alive to me, Ataru-kun," Marubeya Momoe commented from nearby. A bunch of girls from Tomobiki High had followed the shipgirls from the school out of curiosity concerning what was happening with their old classmate and his new friends.

"Ataru's confusion is understandable. As is mine, Momoe," Negako admitted. "Margareta was reported to have died, her body totally disintegrated, on the eve of the summer solstice in 1945, at the Battle of the Gates of Nurmengard...!"

The front door flew open. " _ **SILENCE, YOU MONSTER...!**_ "

" _ **SEISHIN SHURIKEN ARASHI!**_ "

Before the outraged Sakurambō Sakura could charge over to make the nearly-immortal dark kami she had been raised from childhood to both fear and loathe above all else keep silent about something that normal people really had no right to know about — even in a relaxed environment like Tomobiki — bolts of star-shaped ki energy exploded from Ataru's palm to lance through the very pretty twenty-something school nurse/shrine maiden, blasting her out the door and into a quivering heap on the street beyond. As passers-by gaped in shock on seeing one of the acknowledged spiritual defenders of Tomobiki blasted out of the Rāmen Nekohanten like that, many of the girls there could only shake their heads, thankful that their male peers weren't present; if any of them had seen Sakura abused so — and by ATARU of all people! — it would have caused a riot.

Before anyone could say anything, the owner of the establishment growled as he stormed over to shut the door. "Thank you for doing that, Ataru-kun," he said as he gave the Terran tag race champion a mixed look, part-delight and part-confusion. "That stupid idiot and her fool uncle love to come mooch off us every chance they get! With their bottomless stomachs...!"

"No doubt, it can potentially become worse," Negako warned. "With Ataru cleansed of the spirits that loved to plague him with ill luck, they will seek new targets. Given their own issues, Sakura and Hayao will suffer greatly as a result."

That made him tense. Owners of restaurants in Tomobiki had much cause to complain about Sakura and her uncle Sakurambō Hayao, known also as "Cherry". Given that their appetites could equal that of Redet Lum's old fiancé Seq Rei, establishments in town always took bad hits whenever the shrine miko and the itinerant monk came to get something to eat...always whenever someone was foolish enough to run an "all you can eat" special. Of course, those complaints never got aired. Given how much the high school men of Tomobiki utterly adored Sakura, they would NEVER tolerate such an insult on who they viewed as the most beautiful adult woman in town and would have gladly lynched the owners as a result! Of course, now that the rest of the world had "piped in" with their ultimate response to the shenanigans in Tomobiki thanks to the Iranians, Ataru doubted that any of the boys in town would want to push their luck, fearing they also had targets painted on their heads.

 _Now they can experience how it feels to be blamed for things_ , he mused before sharing a kiss with Roma. _Too bad for them..._

"If you wish, Herr Meister, I could see your establishment and those of your friends warded to keep those gierige Sauen out," Margareta said as her eyes twinkled; she clearly knew the story of Tomobiki's resident mystics.

The middle-aged man gaped at her, then he began to sob, clearly relieved that SOMEONE had finally come along to help put controls on those two people. "I assume you are not alone here, Margareta," Negako then stated.

"All of the erstes Bataillon is here, with augmentation, Sensei."

Negako looked ready to smile. "Christine and Regina are marei'cha."

The native of Gardelegen smirked, nodding. "Who are they, Sensei?" Fubuki asked.

"Christine Schultz and Regina Morrow, Fujiko," the ninjutsu grandmaster answered. "Christine was, as of her 'death', the senior non-commissioned officer of the First Battalion of the Black Maiden Brigade, a special fighting arm of the Imperial Magical Army raised by Gellert Grindelwald in 1939 when he launched his final campaign to destroy the International Confederation of Wizards. Regina was the senior non-commissioned officer of the brigade's Third Battalion..."

" _ **THEY'RE THE**_ **SCHWARZE MÄDCHEN** _ **?!**_ "

That was a wide-eyed Yūdachi, who was now staring in all-out awe at the native of Saxony-Anhalt seated nearby. "Um, Yūdachi-chan, you know of these people?!" Gekasawa Kumiko asked. "I mean, I've heard of Grindelwald..."

"Who wasn't as crazy as the idiot that killed Harry Potter's parents," Ataru cut in.

"Kodachi, would you care to explain?" Negako bade.

" _ **YOU CANNOT...!**_ "

" _ **SEISHIN RĒZĀ**_ _ **KŌZEN!**_ "

This time, it was a burning bolt of star-bright energy that burst from the palm of Ataru's hand to nearly rip Cherry in half, sending the diminutive monk flying backwards out of the Nekohanten to smash into the opposite wall across the street. As people all whooped in delight on seeing that — no matter what their opinions on Ataru were these days, everyone in Tomobiki HATED Cherry! — he moved to sip his tea. "Tell them, Kodachi-chan!" he then bade, waving the destroyer on.

Yūdachi blushed as people gazed expectantly her way...

* * *

 _ **Sasebo, that moment...**_

"How are they, Sensei?"

"They'll be alright," Lady Jane said as she waved her metal-and-mesonium wand in a very complex pattern, energy flowing out of it to merge and manipulate the energy of the summoning pool located in the old gymnasium of Kōkai Junior High School. As Akagi and Kaga both watched, the energy produced by the meson-augmented seawater was now drifting up in thick clouds of steam to slowly be absorbed by the four Abyssals now standing unconscious in the middle of the pool, suspended there by the very willpower of the second of the Lady Elgin-class battleships. "Thanks ironically to that lunatic who turned that school into a virtual whorehouse, the amount of intimacy these four have received at the hands of 'normal' humans was enough to permanently dislodge whatever controls whoever is directing these things possessed over them. I think we'll have your sisters back to something concerning proper shape soon enough." She gazed in amusement at the aircraft carriers nearby.

Hearing that, both members of Carrier Division One could only shudder in delight as they grasped the other shipgirl's hand. "Praise the Kami for small favours," Kaga breathed out as she focused her eyes on the sleeping Tosa. Indeed, save for the different hairstyle, the first of her class of super-dreadnoughts could easily be Kaga's twin sister in physical looks, though her body was now being sheathed in something akin to what other Japanese battleships of the Great War generation often wore. The same was true with Akagi's three returned sisters Tōgasa, Minako and Ashitaka. Their skin was now a very healthy Oriental pink-bronze shade, their hair silky and black and their eyes — now dull as their internal systems hadn't been allowed to activate and awaken them — matching their sister's in colour. "Ever since that battle disposed of that one princess in the South China Sea, things have been quiet around this side of the Pacific. Was she Onē-sama's controller?"

"Possibly," the Canadian mused before she perked as radar picked up an incoming battleship. "Good morning, Sonia."

"Good morning, Captain Smith," Arizona said as she walked inside, followed by a curious Pennsylvania. The younger of her class had a tea set with cups and a kettle. "I trust the modifications to the commanders' sisters are progressing well."

"Slowly but surely," the namesake of the Chief Witch of the Wizengamot of the Dominion before and during the Great War answered as she gently twisted her wrist to allow a tendril of energy to flow directly into Tosa's heart. While she was doing this, Arizona proceeded to serve tea to the two Japanese carriers, which earned her nods of thanks from Akagi and Kaga. "I have to admire Lady Negako about her foresight. It's a pity no one thought to seek her out as soon as the Commanders Chihaya were recalled to duty and we were transformed as we were. Her expertise would have been more than welcome."

"Wasted opportunity," Pennsylvania mused as she leaned against the back wall of the stage, crossing her arms. "Still, you're right. It would have saved that poor kid all that trouble concerning those aliens."

Akagi and Kaga gazed upon their friend's older sister. The namesake of the Keystone State still projected an aura of barely-controlled battle rage almost every waking moment of the day. In the language of the samurai of old, she was shinigurui, living now in an emotional frenzy that could propel the former flagship of the Battle Force at the time of Pearl Harbour to incredible feats without any care towards being made to embrace Eternity. Then again, Pennsylvania had cause to be respectful of the larger Canadian warship. Not only was Lady Jane fleet mates with two older battleships whose crews had gladly pulled out half of Arizona's "dead" crewmen from her shattered hull that dark Sunday morning, she welded some of the biggest guns ever put to sea and was a grandmaster in all forms of magic thanks to the combined influences of the thousands of magical sailors who had served within the second of the Lady Elgin-class from her commissioning just after the Second Battle of Dogger Bank to the time of her transformation five years ago. Having served throughout the war when news of the Liberty Legion's exploits kept her crew going even in the early days, Pennsylvania knew very well how dangerous metahumans were.

Challenging what was in effect a _**metahuman shipgirl**_...!

"I'm back."

Heads turned. "How are they, Patty?" Lady Jane asked as Chennalton came in.

The younger battleship shook her head. "A damned mess," the namesake of the brave American transfiguration professor who died saving Canadian magical sailors the same day Bismarck was sunk off the coast of France muttered. "I had to put them in separate cubicles to prevent them from starting an orgy right now." As Arizona flustered on hearing that, Chennalton added, "Something's turned that hypnosis permanently 'on' inside those kids. Making it turn 'off' is a problem."

"Could there be some sort of bond with our sisters, Sensei?" Akagi asked.

"Something like marei'cha?" the flagship of the Pacific Division of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron asked before shaking her head. "It's a possibility. After all, that whole concept works off an Avalonian's telepathic and empathic powers. And that's boosted by the particles of mesonium inside their blood. It's the same concept with these kids and their friends now in Yokosuka. I doubt that brave girl's suggestion to have all those kids go through body-swaps would help."

Kaga snorted. "No. We'd want volunteers to serve as our special boatswain's mates. If those poor unfortunates did undergo that process, they would probably bond with us without any sort of conscious thought. It would be akin to slavery." She sighed. "Much that I am overjoyed that Onē-sama discovered love after so long being buried in hate, I would want her future husband or wife to have make a conscious choice to become such, not be forced to do it by their own genes."

"Yeah, those kids are a hell of a mess, aren't they?"

Eyes locked on Pennsylvania. "Don't tell me...!" Arizona breathed in, her eyes flashing with outrage.

Her sister waved her hands peacefully. "Hey! I did nothing!"

"What happened?" Akagi asked.

The older standard stiffened before her shoulders seemed to deflate. "One of those nurses — really cute kid from Kōbe; her name's Akemi — well...!" A helpless shrug then rolled the battleship's shoulders. "I just said 'hi' to her and she started slinking herself all over my arm." As the younger of her class flustered while the all-too-familiar "prude rage" that Arizona was infamous for began to bubble up from inside her heart, Pennsylvania shrugged. "I didn't want to fraternize with her, but hell! That girl could probably wear down a battalion of Marines all by herself, then take down a battalion of Seabees...!"

It was too much for Arizona.

" _ **MARGARET HANNAH PENN! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!**_ "

Much to the other shipgirls' surprise, Pennsylvania gave her sister an amused look. "Oh?! What about Keiko, Sonia? She was showing some pretty passionate interest in you!" As Arizona awked in embarrassed horror on hearing that, the older standard cackled. "All in tears because of all the scars you got on there. She wanted to kiss them all away!" Her leer then disappeared as she instantly sobered. "Yeah, she's a sick kid and all that. They all are. But given how much Akemi looked at me...!"

"There's a real attraction," Akagi noted.

Another shrug answered her. "Can't tell. Just can't tell."

"Sonia-san...?"

Heads snapped over...

"Keiko-sensei! You should be in bed!" Akagi declared.

"N-no...!" the beautiful girl with the raven hair in the high ponytail and the dark brown eyes behind reading glasses shook her head as the elder carrier moved to help guide her out of the gymnasium and back to her guest quarters in one of the old classrooms. A quick glance into those eyes showed a lot more lucidity than she and her peers had shown when they had been brought here from near Kagoshima. "It's...!" she began before shaking her head. "It's stopped now...!" Her eyes then teared as she moved to stagger over and sit on one of the cots laid out there, a look of nausea crossing her face as she covered her mouth, like she wanted to stop herself from vomiting. "Oh, Kami-sama! How many people did I rape THIS time...?!"

"None."

That was Chennalton. Gazing up at the tall and well-muscled super-battleship, the young nurse blinked before her eyes widened slightly on seeing the family name written on the shipgirl's combat dress jacket; she herself was dressed in magically-conjured naval combat dress always worn by seamen of the Royal Canadian Navy, her family name **MATSUHARA** on a name tape over her right breast. "Are you...one of the Ryūseizen?" she hissed out. "The one who helped Yonaga-sama...?"

"I am," the Canadian battleship affirmed. "You can relax, Matsuhara-sensei. You're effectively safe and free now. You haven't been harmed by any of our new friends now in the summoning pool since they first came to the island and met all your former schoolmates and teachers, then got involved in what Murata- _hakase_..." — her voice dripped with scorn the equal of Niagara Falls on saying that honorific — "...forced you all to effectively become two years ago. You're safe and sound."

Keiko took that in, then shook her head. "No...not safe..."

"Have you seen that man recently, Sensei?" Kaga then gently asked.

She looked over at the younger carrier president, then she sighed. "Last time I could clearly remember was about six months ago, Kaga-sama," she breathed out. "He came by the island to look in on everyone, then noted all the students and teachers were gone." She then gazed on the other shipgirls, a worried look then flashing across her face. "Who got them out?"

"They were evacuated by a girl name Arisugawa Yui," Pennsylvania reported.

That made the nurse blink. "She was a freshman..."

"And an alien cultural observer from a planet named Phentax Two, Miss Keiko," Arizona added. "Because of that, she evaded what that horrid man did to you all, then gladly got her schoolmates off that island and to safety. I doubt she knew of you."

A shake of the head responded. "Iie. The school nursing staff took care of any major health issues with the students; they were the first ones brought into that hypnosis. There was no need to bring them to the clinic. We just dealt with sponsors who were glad to 'sample the wares'." Another look of nausea came across her face, then she blinked as Arizona placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. Looking up into that scarred face, Keiko blinked before her eyes widened in recognition. "Oh, Arizona-sama! You're so _**beautiful**_...!" she breathed out before she blinked, then she shuddered as an urge of raw _**desire**_ surged up from deep within her soul, her vision hazing those scarred, severe features to reveal a face that was whole, not marked by the eternal shame and frustrations stemming from a dark Sunday morning that had haunted the second of the Pennsylvania-class from the moment she came back as a kanmusu three years before at the Fleet Activities nearby.

Seeing that look cross her face, the younger standard shuddered. "N-now, M-miss Keiko, please!" she sputtered as the nurse sensuously rose up to approach her. "Fight this! You can fight this! You can control it! Sit down and...!"

Her voice was cut off as Keiko's lips warmly covered her own, the nurse embracing the powerful standard battleship with a hug that could easily crush a boulder. Not wanting to use her own strength to force the poor girl off — after all, the dear thing was totally NOT in control of her actions and even if the kiss was very nice and full of passion and zest, it was still hideously improper and sinful and...WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE DOING SLIPPING HER _**TONGUE**_ INTO HER MOUTH...?!

"Oh, SHIT!"

Arizona jolted on hearing her sister's cry, then she looked over...

...just as she noted that her whole body was starting to GLOW!

" _ **OH!**_ "

That was a wide-eyed blonde destroyer who was standing at the entrance to the small stage where things in the converted gymnasium were controlled. As the animated gun turret familiars at her feet squealed, echoing Shimakaze's delight on seeing yet another shipgirl was about to embrace a better future, Arizona felt her whole body begin to heat up while tiny particles of the Atom of True Life given to her by that warm kiss from Matsuhara Keiko began to completely rework her body — her hull — in ways NO ONE at the Bureau of Ships in Washington, to say anything of her builders in Brooklyn, could EVER imagine...!

She barely heard Chennalton whisper a spell that cloaked her in a protective aura. While part of her wished that the namesake of that brave Texan magical had used her power to force the poor nurse who was kissing her without abandon away from her — even if she could sense a touch of real attraction in Keiko's glazed eyes; seeing that could mark the nurse as a prospective special boatswain's mate for the younger Pennsylvania-class battleship...if, of course, the whole madness about "M.C. High" didn't throw cold water all over the situation — Arizona shuddered as she felt hundreds of pinprick-like sensations all over her hull, shifting and moulding her without any sense of conscious control by whatever Power was initiating such a transformation.

Watching this, the other shipgirls — save Lady Jane, who was still concentrating on Tosa and her three friends even if several of her own lookouts were helping monitor the situation with her peer from the Great War — blinked as their own special sight concerning how one of their kind would look as a real ship clicked in to see what was being changed about Arizona. And it was profound, even more so than what had happened to Pennsylvania after Pearl Harbour! The lattice masts all melted into the main hull, then steel seemed to remould into a superstructure that resembled what Tennessee and her sister California received after their big refits in 1943, topped by a modern lattice mast bearing advanced radar installations. The crevices in the side of the hull where Arizona's large battery of 5-inch guns had been placed all vanished, the hull smoothing over into a streamlined shape from bow to stern. A new superstructure deck formed over her forecastle deck, flowing out to the sides of her hull and stretching forward and aft to shroud the barbette of her Number 2 turret and hang over her main deck almost to the forward arc of her Number 3 turret. White bubbles appeared close to her superstructure, instantly morphing into nests of super-firing OTO Melera 76 millimetre Mark 75 rapid fire guns in single turrets, they flanking her hull close to her super-firing main gun mounts. A stubby aft superstructure rose from behind her trunked funnel — similar to what Tennessee had been given — that bristling with new equipment including fire control radars and satellite links. Sure enough, the white "R2D2" turrets of four Phalanx CIWS gun systems found themselves placed to the sides of both superstructures at the level of her flag bridge, with two sets of Mark 141 launchers for Harpoons forward of the aft 76 millimetre mounts. Four nests of thirty-two cell Mark 57 GMLVS launchers then appeared on the flat of her superstructure deck, two on each side of her funnel. Her bow was changed from the old style ram she had been built with to a modern bulbous bow with a clipper stem. Her stern was extended from the area of her rudder, widening and morphing into a flat transom nearly as wide as her hull amidships, topped with a landing pad on her main deck for two Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawk helicopters, complete with a two-floor hangar space on her third deck level, built around her steering gear in the same way all Canadian battleships were rebuilt in the 1980s to carry.

"Holy shit...!"

A now _**scarless**_ Arizona blinked on hearing her sister's awed gasp just as a bout of dizziness seized her for a moment while her transformed hull howled at the fact that she now had empty bunkers and magazines; all the metaphysical fuel that had been within her before this strange "modernization" overcame her had been sucked up by the mesonium Keiko's kiss pumped into her hull to help in the rebuild. Given the sheer scale of what just happened to her — as her conscious mind was quick to detect while the fairies that represented her lost crew found themselves totally bewildered as they took in the new equipment, especially the missiles and rapid-fire guns, not to mention her new sensory gear and helicopters — she blinked as Keiko slowly pulled away from her, her eyes clear and bright even if confusion crossed her face for a second before a look of shocked horror flashed across the nurse's face. The battleship's arms instantly moved to hold the other woman close to her as a wailing scream escaped Keiko while she collapsed against the American while the others bowed their heads in mute sympathy.

Even Shimakaze could only shake her head in horror over what was going on...

* * *

 _ **Miura-chō Catholic Church (two kilometres south of east from Kōkai Junior High School), that moment...**_

"It has happened..."

Hearing that calm statement from the smiling Korean shaman who had been quietly meditating in the front pew of the beautiful cathedral that had been built not so far from the location of the city's main train station and bus terminal, the young Roman Catholic missionary could only nod as he gazed up upon the image of the Savior. "Praise God for that at least," Monsignor Joachim Löw whispered before he intoned a small prayer for the beautiful yet troubled ship-spirit who often sought sanctuary within the walls of what was also known as "Seishin Cathedral" whenever she could spare time from her duties. "We had strong doubts back in the Vatican about this, Reverend. Given how badly troubled Sonia was in the long term..."

"Understandable," Ch'oe Sŏwŏn affirmed with a tired nod. To the people of Sasebo, he was a migrant from the Kangnam Ward of Sŏul, descent originally from Sariwŏn in North Hwanghae Province south of P'yŏng'yang, having moved to the Japanese port city when limited travel was permitted between the island nation and its closest neighbour four years ago, shortly after the first Korean shipgirls were summoned to Chinhae. In his public identity, Master Ch'oe ran a family-owned restaurant not far from the front gate of the joint naval base in town, specializing in cooking one of Korea's more healthy stew dishes, samgyet'ang. Such a dish had won the hearts of both locals and American service personnel alike, especially when the health benefits of the stew made from a young chicken stuffed with rice, ginseng, garlic and jujube became more publicly known.

One of Master Ch'oe's customers was one Lieutenant Sonia Owings, the living spirit of United States Ship _Arizona_.

That had been intentional from the start.

As Monsignor Löw knew thanks to superiors in the Vatican, Ch'oe Sŏwŏn had served in the Greater East Asia Liberation Army under Yomigawa Tsukiko during the War of Liberation that paralleled the Greater East Asia War. A colonel in the Teikoku Mahō-gun who topped as deputy commander of the First "White Tiger" Brigade of that elite force, the native of Sariwŏn gladly took the chance to win his nation's full independence in the normal world by fighting for Shōwa Tennō — who certainly had not been at fault for what his grandfather allowed to happen in 1910 — during a time when magical societies teetered on the edge of complete exposure to the normals and millions worldwide had been discovered to be enslaved to European governments that unleashed horrid crimes all in the name of imposing their "advanced" form of spellcraft. He had personally duelled with British-aligned Gurkha mage warriors across the Indian subcontinent until a brutal strike by Yomigawa's German allies on the Ministry of Magic in London in 1942 saw the Nepalese magicals renounce their affiliation to the Crown and return to their villages, thus allowing the Liberation Army to run rampant all the way to Iran. Surviving the war with, Master Ch'oe returned home only to find his homeland being totally ripped apart thanks to the conflicting demands of the Cold War, forcing him to decamp to the more magically-sympathetic South and become a teacher of magical defence at the Sungmo Academy on Cheju-do close to Mount Halla. He hadn't been able to return back to his home town until shortly after the government and military complex of the North had been shattered by the Abyssals in the same campaign that had ultimately wrecked their allies in mainland China. By then, Negi Springfield had made his discovery, which galvanized researchers in the Eight Imperial Magical Commanderies of Japan and the Ministry of Magical Affairs in Korea to do the same.

Master Ch'oe had been the person to summon the living spirit of the Republic of Korea Ship _Ch'ungmu_ (ex-USS _Erben_ ) — known as Hallie Ŭnji Erben to her closest friends — back to duty to serve as the United Republic's first haegun ch'ŏnnyŏ.

He was also involved in the mass summoning of dozens of would-be Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers of the Yūgumo-class, Kagerō-class and the Project V6 (or "Super Shimakaze-class") to Chinhae to eventually serve in the United Republic Navy.

Fortunately, the current Heavenly Sovereign had been more than understanding.

Much to the howling despair of Japan's small but vocal groups of ultra-nationalist militarists who considered that particular act as nothing short of "mass theft" by the "dog-eaters" of Korea against their "betters" in Japan.

Sadly for those idiots who wouldn't understand the concept of REAL history if it slapped them in their faces, local veterans of the Greater East Asia Liberation Army didn't care to have their friends in the Land of the Morning Calm insulted like that.

Too bad...

"Will it be easy for Sonia to adjust?" Löw asked. While having not been properly baptized as a Catholic, the second Pennsylvania-class battleship was a frequent visitor to the church, often spending time alone praying for her lost crew.

Ch'oe shook his head. "With Lady Jane and Chennalton here? Yes."

After moving to Sasebo three years ago, the Korean shaman joined friends in the Kyūshū Magical Association in modifying the summoning pool at Sasebo to allow the Americans to summon their vast fleet to fight off the demons of the Abyss. He had been delighted beyond belief to learn their efforts had finally succeeded...then had been horrified to learn that the first ship who had returned to duty at Sasebo — the Martyr of Pearl Harbour herself! — had come back in such a woeful state of preparedness. That got everyone working on a possible cure to give Arizona a decent modern upgrade to help her fight the foe; much that she had done splendidly in her first action with Hiei in defence of Karatsu, the fact that she still had her _**commissioning kit**_ from 1916 as her equipment was enough to keep the poor, tortured woman stuck in port most of the time.

Fortunately, the Koreans meticulously copied the Canadians' approach to bringing haegun ch'ŏnnyŏ back to duty, no thanks to the blood magic that had risen thanks to the sacrifice of THOUSANDS of Korean sailors at Second Iō-tō during Blood Week.

Thanks to that...!

Ch'oe smiled as he gazed upon the painful image of Jesus as He was depicted nailed to the cross at Golgotha.

Yes, the gods had willed this...

* * *

 _ **Kōkai Junior High School, an hour later...**_

"My God above...!" John Richardson breathed out.

Was it Christmas...?

" _ **ADMIRAL!**_ " Arizona snarled as she glared resentfully at him, making the Virginian openly wince from a look that outdid her previous bounds of prude rage by several magnitudes. "Please! Now is NOT the time to rejoice at my upgrade!"

She then gazed fretfully down at the shuddering Matsuhara Keiko, who was now in her bed in one of the old classrooms, having been given a dreamless sleep potion conjured up by Chennalton to calm the distraught nurse down after she began to scream once more at being made to rape someone...never mind said someone being a famous American kanmusu like Arizona. As a considerable squadron of other shipgirls who were currently posted to Sasebo all gazed in sympathy at the weeping nurse, Albacore looked at the Canadian battleship, who was now using her wand to do some diagnostics. "How could this have happened, Captain?" the subgirl known to close friends as Raye Rimmer in honour of her last captain then asked. "I mean, Sonia would have had to go through her normal Mark II and Mark III upgrade just to get even with Maggie here...!"

"I'll have a look at her next, Lieutenant. Please don't interrupt me," the last of Canada's magical battleships declared. "Right now, I want to make sure the potion I just gave the poor nurse here settles into her. All this ebony mesonium in her blood might badly dilute the potion's effects. We need her to be able to face her past actions with open eyes and a clear heart, not haunted by nightmares that could make her think all sorts of horrid things about what she could have done."

The Gato-class submarine who had helped Hiei and Arizona sink that one Abyssal off Karatsu nodded in understanding as Jane Richardson squeezed her shoulders. Before people could say anything, a knock echoed from the door. Richardson looked over, then he gaped before standing and saluting. "Mister Lyman! What are you doing here, sir?!" he greeted the deputy chief of staff to Josiah Bartlet while the other shipgirls save Chennalton rose to give Josh Lyman smart salutes.

The native of the Constitution State waved everyone back down. "The President has just learned what was discovered about that school down the coast from here," he stated. "Being a Catholic institution, he was actually asked by His Holiness to do anything possible to see those girls helped. I assume that lady there Captain Chennalton is looking at is one of those girls?" As the others nodded, Lyman shook his head. "And the guy who started this was from Unit 731?"

"The grandson of a researcher of that unit, Josh," Hiei answered. The second of the Kongō-class always kept Bartlet's deputy chief of staff appraised on personal observations concerning life at Sasebo. "Believe me, Yoiko-san knows about this. Once she gets her hands on this monster, her vengeance is going to be something epic to watch. She'll make it really drawn out."

Lyman blinked. "I thought the Heavenly Sovereign absolved her of anything concerning what her old 'bosses' did, Sarah."

"Even if she is legally absolved, Josh, Yoiko-san has a moral responsibility," Mutsu cautioned as the other shipgirls nodded.

"As a matter of fact, Commander Yamamoto, would you please extend my deepest compliments to Captain Itō and ask her that when she gets her hands on this monster, she has Commander Hashimoto the younger FILM it for us!" Richardson stated with a growl. "I'm sure it'll do wonders for these girls' poor spirits when they see what happens to that bastard."

"I will do so, Admiral," his pregnant fiancée vowed.

That made Lyman blink again. "That bad?"

"And then some, sir," Albacore warned.

Silence fell as he considered that, then he nodded. "Yeah..." He then perked on seeing the beautiful battleship in work NWUs now kneeling beside the unconscious nurse. "Oh, a new one?!" he asked as he took in her considerable measure.

She gazed his way, causing him to blink as a shock of familiarity crossed his face before confusion settled back on those handsome features. As the other shipgirls and Jane Richardson smirked on seeing that reaction, Lyman's eyes focused on her face for a moment before he glanced briefly at her jacket and the name that was printed on the tape there: **OWINGS**.

"Sonia...?" he gasped.

"It's her, sir," the elder Richardson stated. "You might say that Lieutenant Owings just got herself a 'Mark III-Plus' upgrade."

Hearing that, Lyman gaped before he nodded. "You'll have to brief the President."

"He's...here...?"

That made people gaze upon the shuddering nurse on the bed. "Go to sleep, Keiko," Chennalton stated. "You need the chance to rest and recuperate. That kiss you gave Sonia drained a lot of energy and magic out of you. You need to rest."

"No...!" the nurse sputtered as she focused on the handsome political advisor at the entrance to the old classroom. "Lyman-sensei...the President...is there...?" she began before taking a deep breath. "I need...to make...a confession..."

Lyman nodded. "President Bartlet's family priest is here, ma'am. I'll get him for you." With that, he headed out.

Keiko nodded before fresh sobs took her voice...

* * *

 _ **Outside the school, an hour later...**_

Josiah Bartlet could only shake his head as he took in the warm nicotine fumes from the cigarette that was helping calm his nerves from the horrid revelation about that school of helpless girls who had fallen victim to a ghastly experiment that transformed a decent place of education into a brothel, complete with underage prostitutes that would have even liberal supporters of legalizing the sex trade frothing at the mouth. Much that he couldn't say something in support of this in public — doing that would definitely NOT make people like Toby Ziegler and C.J. Cregg happy — he privately hoped Murata Eiichi would be captured soon by the mass dragnet being unleashed by the Eight Commanderies and the Royal Canadian Foresters, then turned over to Yonaga to allow the carrier to unleash her fury on the maniac. Given the details of reports which had been passed on to him through magical advisors — all members of the magical wings of the Secret Service and the United States Marshals, students of Mollie Bean who understood the TRUE order of things despite what many members of the Magical Congress believed — concerning what that one alien observer did for the alumni of Saint Maria Christos Girl's School...

"She should get a medal."

That was Ziegler himself, who was standing close to his current employer. Bartlet looked at him, then he smiled. "His Holiness will make Miss Arisugawa a member of the Order of Pope Pius IX at the rank of Grand Cross, Toby," the president stated before finishing the rest of the cigarette and stubbing it out in a nearby ashtray. As one of the magical Secret Service members waved his wand to remove such a thing, the former governor of New Hampshire sighed. "As to revealing the truth about her, that might not be too much of a problem. I have to admire her father for his willingness to 'buck the trend' and send her to Earth for her own safety. Much that Commander Caldwell and Miss Wakefield are doing their best to keep news of what's happening here on Earth from getting to our 'friends' from Phentax Two, it's not a totally airtight system."

"According to Governor Otako, the governors in the outer colonies are moving to denounce the 'one truth faith' and form a government that has no religious affiliation whatsoever, just as we do it," Leo McGarry added from Bartlet's other side. "Of course, those lunatics in Lumukyō declared them apostates and issued death warrants for them all, but with no fleet to enforce it and the Ipraedies considering sending a 'peacekeeping' force in to fully wipe that mess out..."

"Should keep our friends in Ipraedos City busy looking elsewhere than here," Bartlet noted, wishing again that members of the Men In Black had survived the first attack on New York six years ago that forced the United Nations to decamp to a safer location at Niagara Falls, with offices on both sides of the international border overlooking the world-famous cataract. Much that the intelligence that had once been gathered by what was officially designated the "Special Committee on Alien Activities" had been quite amazing to take in, it had been edited by the MIB to an extent. Getting it directly from Noukiite liaison officers based out of planet Tengsei — the fourth world of Alpha Centauri A — was quite welcome to Terran world leaders.

"Mister President?"

They turned as C.J. Cregg came to join them. "What is it, C.J.?" Bartlet asked.

"What sort of press report should we release about Lieutenant Owings, sir?" the Ohioan who was the current White House press secretary asked. "People are going to notice fast that something's happened to her. Her scars gone..."

Bartlet nodded. "The lieutenant has experienced a one-of-a-kind equipment upgrade that now makes her the equal of any of the Leviathan Homicidae as they've been observed to be these days, C.J. Due to the sudden nature of the incident, she will not assume full-time duties until her capabilities are tested out rigorously in a safe environment. People tend to forget the spirits of her lost crew are now part of her very soul. They need to adjust to a seventy-year leap forward in technology before she could even hope to rejoin her fleet mates. Atop not only that, if this can be replicated in some way to help everyone advance to levels our allies elsewhere have achieved, then we have to study all the implications of this. Fair enough?"

"Yes, sir."

"And DON'T mention those girls like Miss Matsuhara."

Cregg nodded, an understanding smile crossing her face. The reporters who had accompanied the president to Japan knew about the girls of "M.C. High", but were too decent to even think of making that go public. "Of course, sir."

"Go on, C.J."

As she headed off to brief the press — now in one of the old classrooms as they awaited the chance to be updated on what was going on — Bartlet sighed. "Did you get a chance to take a look at Sonia, Professor?" he asked.

A disillusionment charm dispersed, allowing the current Secretary of Magic to appear close to the door leading into the school. "It appears our Korean friends were involved in this, Jed," Professor Samuel Quahog announced as he moved to sit close to his current commander-in-chief. The Rhode Islander who had served with the Magical Wing of the United States Marine Corps in the War of Liberation — he topped out as executive officer of the 72nd Marine Regiment by the time of VJ Day — had taken a chance to make a personal tour of Sasebo to connect with local magicals. "The former XO of the White Tiger Brigade, Colonel Ch'oe Sŏwŏn, lives in town. He runs a traditional Korean restaurant Lieutenant Owings frequents. The samgyet'ang they serve there was magically augmented to help her better adopt to modern technology and allow her to vault past even what the Navy turned Commander Hyde and her sisters into back in the 1980s." He shook his head. "All it needed was the right trigger. That came today when Miss Matsuhara kissed her. While I wouldn't rate any of those poor girls as true 'metahumans', the levels of ebony mesonium in their blood is dangerously high. It was just enough to push the lieutenant through."

"What capabilities, Professor?" McGarry asked.

Quahog smirked. "Full anti-aircraft missile battleship, Leo. She has four of the newer multi-tube launcher systems that most Navy ships carried before this madness began. She does have Harpoons in the canister launchers, but I doubt she could carry more than that for anti-ship work." Even if he was of a pureblood line that could trace its ancestry back to the Revolutionary War, the former transfiguration professor from Ilvermorny (Masters Class of 1929) was up to date on modern military affairs. The scandal that surrounded an Abyssal attack on USS _Iowa_ off Puerto Rico in 1989 — where an innocent sailor wound up ultimately being blamed for the infamous "turret explosion" that killed him and forty-six of his shipmates on suspicions of being suicidal — had been the thing to see him elected "magical president" of the United States later that year. "In effect, she is a smaller version of either of the Sunbeam-class as they were modified in the 1980s, complete with internal aircraft storage." As the others nodded in appreciation, Quahog sighed, a touch of a smile crossing his face. "Nicely done, Colonel..."

"Please pass my compliments to the colonel, Professor," Bartlet said.

"That I will, Jed. That I will..."

"Am I interrupting something?"

All of them turned, then the president sighed. "How is she, Father?"

Father Thomas Cavanaugh, the parish priest from Hanover in New Hampshire who had been Josiah Bartlet's personal spiritual advisor when he was much younger, took a deep breath before sitting down on one of the benches the other men occupied. After a moment as the elderly cleric took a moment to gather his thoughts, he then shook his head, his dark eyes brimming with tears. "How can someone do that to such innocent people, Jed?" he then hoarsely exclaimed. "How...?"

"Is she alright?" McGarry asked.

Cavanaugh nodded. "Captain Chennalton was able to get her back to sleep." He then wryly chuckled. "I even took Lieutenant Owings' confession. Even if she did no sin as far as I could see, she still wanted to confess what she 'did' to that poor woman." He shook his head. "I am a man of faith, Jed. I do not and will never condone something like what some of the ladies who were there when the lieutenant was 'upgraded' want to do now to that man, but...!"

"It is the place of those of Faith to forgive, believing it is only the dominion of the Kami to deliver such judgement on those who sin, Reverend," a cold woman's voice then uttered, making everyone turn to see a certain carrier walk up to join them. As the magical bodyguards all focused their attention on the fifth of the Yamato-class, Yonaga took a breath before she gazed out towards the bay and the arm of the East China Sea separating mainland Kyūshū from the Gotō Islands and the Namhae beyond. "It is the place and duty of warriors to ensure those who do not take solstice in Faith get the justice — and yes, the vengeance — for those who feel that the Kami have abandoned them." She then lightly smirked before she gazed upon Cavanaugh. "He will not die when I finally have him in my possession, Reverend. Remember that our ways of looking upon Life are much different. There are fates far worse than death for someone who has done as this man has done to so many."

"I neither condone nor condemn what you plan to do, Captain," the priest stated diplomatically, earning him a surprised look from the president. Bartlet remembered what happened when he asked his old priest to visit the White House one day when he had been forced to decide on a stay of execution for a man who murdered two drug kingpins. "What of you, then? Don't tell me there was no one in all those years you were trapped in that bay that could have seen to the welfare of your crew."

"You need not fret. My junior navigation officer served as the chief ujiko for the Shrine of Infinite Salvation which was placed in my hangar deck." As the priest nodded, Yonaga took a deep breath. "Fortunately, Patricia-san was able to remove the physical shrine itself from me before my final transformation six months ago. I will approach Tennō to have the Shrine placed in a location where all the kanmusu can then gather to place artifacts from their late crews there so all the kami who give us the power to fight the current foe can be collected together to watch over us all. I will not use Yasukuni in that regard." She shook her head in clear disapproval. "That so many have perverted that place to their own political bickering..."

The others nodded. While the Yasukuni Shrine near the Imperial Palace in Tōkyō had always been seen as the Japanese equivalent to hallowed places like Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, the addition of war criminals from World War Two as kami in the shrine's Book of Souls caused a lot of friction with other nations. "Perhaps you can use the Ryōzen Gokoku Shrine in Kyōto, Captain," Ziegler proposed. "It doesn't come with any of the controversy that Yasukuni is haunted with."

An eyebrow arched. "I could do that, Sensei. If Tennō approves, of course." She took a deep breath as the others all shared knowing smirks at that show of loyalty to the Heavenly Sovereign by the carrier. "Mister President, when I was in Tomobiki just now, I was witness to a most interesting reunion between Negako-sama and a former student of hers." She fixed Bartlet with a knowing look before she declared the name, "Margareta Hecht. I do believe Colonel Quahog knows of her."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"That's not POSSIBLE...!" a white-faced Quahog exclaimed.

"No, Professor. Rittmeister von Taserich had other ideas."

The secretary of magic stared wide-eyed at the president before he looked nowhere in particular for a moment as he considered that fact. "How?! I know that man is capable of a lot — look what he did to President Lincoln! — but how...?"

"You trained under Professor Bean. Remember what happened to her at the seventy-fifth anniversary of Gettysburg?"

Quahog stared at him, the wheels in his mind turning rapidly as he recalled what had been revealed by his old friend and teacher Mollie Bean sometime after World War Two ended — a fact that he once swore an oath of secrecy to, one finally lifted when the general revelation of the Avalonians came about thanks to Moroboshi Negako over the last year — then he chuckled. "There were spare bodies around in Europe. How many observers did those people have in the Continent at the time?"

"Enough bioroid bodies for the whole brigade, all forty-four hundred of them," Bartlet stated. "Magicals in Europe knew the Rittmeister was sympathetic to 'no-maj-borns'." Hearing that made Quahog blink; he knew the former New Hampshire state governor didn't care for that type of term to be used for normal-born magicals, thinking it demeaning for those not born with metahuman powers. "No one ever thought to ask Dean Raeburn to find the man and see if he did something to protect General Gibbon and her friends. Minister Grindelwald didn't know a thing in all the years since he was imprisoned in Nurmengard. It was sheer luck that brought the Rittmeister back to Earth and he learned those women were still frozen in their gestation tubes in a cave at Nurmengard Mountain, no more than fifty yards from where their former leader was spending life!" As the magicals gaped, Bartlet smiled. "Jessica Dover told me that after she was assigned to help lead the Eurocorps."

"The Soul-Eater is HERE?!" the secretary of magic's chief aide, Sarah Abernathy, squawked.

"Would you blame the Canadians for NOT asking them to come back, Miss Abernathy?" Bartlet asked.

Silence fell over the scene. "The only one we really have to worry about is America's own dark angel in that group, Mister President," McGarry then warned. "Regina Mitchell. If Sergeant Major Hecht is here in Japan..."

"All of their First Battalion is here, Sensei," Yonaga stated. "Regina-san is also here. She is now bound as marei'cha to the battalion sergeant-major, Christine Schultz. Negako-sama has taken them all under her protection and is moving to learn what has happened to the others of the brigade." She gazed knowingly at Quahog. "For the sake of your fellow magicals in the Union, Colonel Quahog, see to it they learn this. Negako-sama will NOT tolerate any of her students coming to harm, especially when your president's honoured predecessor used his power as granted him in the Magical Constitution to pardon Regina-san for her actions against those she blamed for tearing her away from family and friends before that war."

Quahog shakily nodded...

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile, back in Tomobiki...**_

"There! Signore e signori, your establishments are fully protected!"

" _ **NO! YOU CAN'T DO THAT...!**_ "

" _ **REDUCTO!**_ "

A bolt of energy leapt out of the wand of a smirking Italian woman in the grey-and-black of German mountain infantry to plow like a runaway Shinkan-sen train into Sakurambō Sakura, sending the shrine miko/school nurse flying out of the town Ginza into a nearby telephone pole, nearly snapping it by the force of the impact. Seeing that, many of the restaurant owners who had just received such help from the Black Maidens screamed in delight. As they had watched the pioneer company of the First Battalion permanently shield their establishments from that hated woman and her even-more hated uncle, company commander Major Miriam "Miri" Santelli gladly and thoroughly explained the process of constructing those "wards" every step of the way, thus they were confident that their own profit margins wouldn't disappear anytime in the future thanks to the shrine miko or her uncle. While there had been a crowd of boys from Tomobiki High who had watched in helpless frustration as Sakura was treated like total shit by these ignorant visitors from Europe, too many others in the crowd were fully supportive of the Black Maidens' actions; long-buried frustrations concerning the shrine miko and her uncle had finally bubbled to the surface in the last month...and without people like Aisuru Satoshi or Mendō Shūtarō to galvanize support, there was no way for the men of Tomobiki High to reassert influence over the situation. That made many of their female peers very happy.

Watching this as he enjoyed a cup of his lover's preferred hot decaffeinated espresso with little foam, Moroboshi Ataru could only smirk as he focused his eyes on Kanzaki Ryūha. A member of Class 2-5 and the like-numbered freshman class before the start of spring term, the raven-haired teen hadn't been directly involved in the shenanigans that haunted the "class of failure" over the last year, but had always shown support towards Lum's claims of marriage to her "darling". From what Ataru's sister Hiromi had reported thanks to spies scattered throughout town — augmented from news from his former classmates — Ryūha was determined to try to keep the boys together even in the face of last night, doing everything he could to make people focus on the "true" issue and get things back to the way they were before the whole issue with Ataru's other "fiancée" came up.

A glance with ki sight revealed the potential cause of the man's current attitudes: The ghostly figure of someone appearing to be a very fat, grey-haired, gnomish fellow Cherry's size with beady eyes behind dark reading glasses, dressed in a top hat and stage performer's tuxedo. Ataru had more than enough cause to remember him: Mujaki, the dream demon who came to class one day the previous fall to force-feed a tsunami of bad dreams from Ataru into a mythical creature named Baku, an eater of nightmares. While Ataru had no idea why this yōma decided to do that one day, he now knew through Negako that Mujaki had also plotted to give Redet Lum a good dream around the time of the winter festival back in late February. Barely remembering that even now, Ataru could only guess what would make this thing continue to plague the lives of his old classmates...

«What is that THING close to your 'friend', Amore?»

Hearing Roma's voice echo in his own mind, he smirked. No doubt, faerie lookouts on his lover's bridge had just spotted the little jerk. «Meet Mujaki, a very poor version of Morpheus, Tesoro,» he responded in kind as he sipped his espresso. He had forged a subtle psionic bond with her — not a fully-blown marei'cha bond that Avalonians, even blood-adopted ones like him, could create with those they loved more than anything else — after their reunion so they could enjoy private conversations that not even other shipgirls could sense. Out of the corner of his eye, he was quick to see the demon jolt in sullen outrage; no doubt, he was tapping into their psionic conversation and just got the reference. «Idiot went out of his way back in February to put us into the same type of situation that both Urashima Tarō and Rip van Winkle went through back in those old children's stories. All that was to give Lum a 'good' dream where she and I were together...which also included all her 'friends' like the four fools killed last night. Which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt how much Lum NEVER loved me...!»

" _ **HOW DARE YOU...?!**_ "

As ki exploded in and around Ryūha to form some sort of ghostly aura around him, making many of the people around the poor man scream out in fright, Ataru smirked as his left eye glowed star bright. " **Thank you** ," he said...

...before a bolt of killing energy lashed out to punch through Mujaki's body, causing the demon to shriek as he sensed way too late the true power of the being that had become Moroboshi Ataru's effective spiritual patron well over a year before on a planet many light-years away, far beyond the reach of any Earth kami who could have stopped this. As people watched, many of the people from Class 2-4 screamed on seeing the diminutive man suddenly appear before his spectral body was sliced in half by the brutal eye laser Ataru's hidden-self could unleash. "Hey! That's the stupid dream demon that came to class one day last fall!" Marubeya Momoe shrieked as she pointed at the dying Mujaki. "What the hell is he still doing here?!"

Ataru allowed his eye to go back to normal as a howl of pain escaped Mujaki before his shredded spirit was scattered into the Te'a, never to reform again. Taking a deep breath as he returned to his coffee, he shrugged. "Remember back in the winter festival when people bitched and complained about dreaming of doing the same thing day after day, Marubeya-san?"

Momoe's head snapped over, then she gaped. "He did _**that**_?!"

"He did! It turns out that Lum met him sometime before and he made a promise that she would end up getting a GOOD dream from him!" As the girls present all shuddered in outrage on hearing that yet again, some stupid kami or some other creature got involved with their old classmate from planet Uru to make their lives hell, Ataru shrugged. "I honestly didn't know he was still in town. No doubt, the same stupid yōma who've loved to screw around with people's lives here are now trying to get things back to the way they were a month ago." He gazed over as Ryūha seemed to totter for a moment before he dropped face first onto the sidewalk. "You okay, man?" he helpfully called out before turning back to finish the rest of his coffee.

"You...stupid boy...! Don't you...see what... _ **you**_ have done...?"

Ataru calmly looked over at Cherry, who had been severely bludgeoned every time he tried to interfere in the ward-laying by some of the magical pioneers who had come with Miriam to help proof all the restaurants against both him and his niece. As several recognizable members of the Kantō Magical Association's senior staff nearby all snickered on seeing how much the elderly monk was trying to turn people once more against the last host of the Earth Angel, Ataru shrugged. "Don't blame me for this, Cherry. You honestly thought you can continue to get away with mooching off innocent people like that all the time? When we're being forced to live under RATIONING, even NOW?!" He shook his head. "Shipgirls have worked their asses off to make sure people stay fed here, like they've done for Britain as well! What do you do?! Act like the Abyssals never existed in the first place! Yeah, I made my mistakes about that, but I had an excuse! What's yours?! Do I need to use a soulsword on YOU to get the demons possessing YOU out of there?!" He smirked. "Or will that KILL you in the end, I wonder?"

"Hey, Moroboshi!"

"Hey, Ataru!"

"Ataru-san!"

He blinked, then looked over. "Damn! You just got the uniform, huh?!"

As many of the boys all gasped on seeing Fujinami Ryūnosuke now dressed in the white military uniform that Tsuruya Rumiko had worn when she left Tomobiki High for Yokosuka the previous afternoon, Ataru nodded in approval. Escorting the newest "special boatswain's mate" to have joined the wider Yokosuka family were the two younger of the Akatsuki-class destroyers, both of whom were holding the hands of the tea shop "heir" from Chōshi. "Yeah, I did!" Ryūnosuke said as she let go of Inazuma's and Ikazuchi's hands while many of the girls cheered. "Those Foresters are something else! I'm all moved in right beside where these little scamps' mom-boats live and Ōtani-chūsa's helping me get Hamachaya started up!" She then stopped on seeing all the women looking to be a little bit older than her moving to wave wands and other such things around various restaurants. "Who the heck are all these girls?!" she then demanded as she thumbed Miriam Santelli.

"The Canadian Foresters' old sparring partners from World War Two in Europe, the Black Maidens," Ataru answered. As the visitors from Europe smiled while the destroyers who were present cheered them on, he added, "Turns out that Onē-san's delightful 'grandfather' decided that he didn't like the idea of normal-born girls who were being treated like crap by those so-called 'wise magical elders' in Europe dying like that when that thing on Nerio decided he was going to double-cross Gellert Grindelwald. Unfortunately, no one learned where he stashed them after the war ended to keep them safe from revenge-seekers and they didn't get out of suspension until before the Oni came last summer. They helped out in magically reinforcing the German's coastal wall, then their leader sent a battalion over here to help us defend ourselves; back in the war, they all trained under Onē-san and Tsukiko-sensei to make them the meanest things those idiots in Europe ever ran across."

"Oh! Well, at least they're alive and okay. What are they doing?!"

"Ensuring two annoying pests won't eat all the restaurants dry just like Seq Rei loved to do all the time," Ataru answered.

Ryūnosuke blinked, then she looked over to see Sakura unconscious and bleeding on the ground nearby, then she glanced elsewhere to see Cherry effectively a pile of bruises and broken bones. "Right...!" she then drawled. "So easy to forget these two morons all the time," she muttered, shaking her head. "They can't expect people to let them get away with that shit..."

" _ **WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, FUJINAMI?!**_ "

She perked, then looked over...

...before she sighed on seeing Kanzaki Ryūha now standing there, bruises on his face from his collapsing onto concrete minutes before and an outraged look on his face. "None of your fucking business, Kanzaki!" she snapped as Ikazuchi glared his way while Inazuma could only shake her head in pity. "You're not my old man and you sure as hell aren't my friend, you lifeless jerk! Go crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of and kindly stop giving people earaches!"

Ryūha jolted, then he snarled, "What would Shinobu-san think then?!"

"I don't care what she thinks! She wasn't there for me last night and she's never had a say in my life in the first place...!"

A croaked gasp of pain-filled guilt echoed from nearby, making Ataru look right to see a wide-eyed Miyake Shinobu standing there, looking as if the tea shop tomboy just came up and stabbed her in the heart. As a flash of guilt briefly crossed Ryūnosuke's face before she recalled what happened to her the previous evening settled back in her heart and resentment took its place, Ataru's former girlfriend shook her head in denial before she screamed in pain, then spun and ran away. Ataru watched the selfish girl go, then shook his head as he turned back to finish his espresso. While many of the girls from Tomobiki High all then looked guilty as they immediately realized that none of them had gone to their suffering schoolmate's side in her trying time of need, the boys present shuddered as they realized they had again lost yet another schoolmate to the Abyssal War...which was yet another guarantee that things in Tomobiki would never go back to being "normal" again.

Taking a moment to finish his coffee, he then stood up from the bench he had been relaxing on, offering his arm to Roma. She rose to join him, then they turned to walk away in the general direction to where Shinobu fled; they intended to get to a handy alley to use a portkey and transport themselves back to Sasebo. As many of the boys began screaming at each other while they tried to figure out what to do, many girls gave Ryūnosuke apologetic looks before they turned to leave themselves. Noting that, the tea shop tomboy could only smirk before she gazed down at the two destroyers who accompanied her to Tomobiki. She wouldn't do anything that pointed out to others that Ataru was leaving; she doubted he wanted to deal with crap from any of the hangers-on to Lum's Stormtroopers and there was Roma to worry about as well. Her current companions had also warned her that something even WORSE than what all the stories about the Battle of Morningstar Plain said had befallen her old classmate when he had been fired back in time had happened to the man. Thus, it wasn't the wisest thing to do to rile him up. Given that he actually KILLED an Abyssal PRINCESS a few days ago when he and his sister had found Yonaga...!

"Frau Fujinami?"

Ryūnosuke perked before she turned as a silver-haired woman came up to her, bearing quite the impressive number of medals on her waist-length grey jacket, the Iron Cross being quite prominent. "Um, y-yeah?" she then asked.

"Do you and your little ones need a portkey back to Yokosuka?"

That made the younger woman shrug. "Yeah! Got no reason to hang around this place anymore! Just wanted to pass on to Negako-san that I managed to get all my stuff moved down to the cruiser barracks there. You seen her?"

"Sensei is at the Toranoseishin Tower," Margareta Hecht said as she indicated the nearby office tower. "We could pass on the news to her if you wish. Given how much these außerirdische Liebhaber seem determined to chain you down again...!"

Here, she gazed at Ryūha. Even the lowest private in the group of magical pioneers and other personnel moving to finish sealing the restaurants from Cherry and Sakura had spotted that gnomish creature hanging near this fellow's shoulder before Ataru exorcised it with that eye-beam of his. As he shuddered on noting that he was not getting any support from any of these gaijin magicals who were moving to effectively make Sakura's life hell — like many of his peers, he didn't care about her uncle — Ryūnosuke reached over to grasp her current charges' hands. "C'mon, girls," she bade as Inazuma and Ikazuchi gazed up at her. "We better get back before Tamiyo-san and Tadako-san start tearing the place apart looking for you two."

"Hai!" Inazuma said as she pulled Ryūnosuke away from the selfish boys ready to do anything to bully innocent people again.

"So you're letting _**Ataru**_ get away with _**brainwashing**_ you, too?!"

She stopped to gaze on Koi Shinjin while many of his peers also looked his way, hoping he might be the one who could help them take control of this mess and get things back to the way they should be. A rather frail and sickly fellow, he had been quite lucky last night; he had been guiding boys onto the school grounds when those fembot things showed up to slaughter the leaders of the Stormtroopers. While he hadn't made as much noise concerning Lum as Megane and his crew did over the last year, it was as clear as crystal that he was just as crazy for the alien warlord's daughter as her late "fan".

"What the fuck makes you think that Moroboshi did anything to me, Koi?!" she demanded. "Shit, I always knew you were just as single-minded as Megane was when it came to that stupid alien bitch, but WOW! You really take the cake...!"

" _ **HOW DARE YOU?!**_ " Shinjin shrieked. "Tell her, Ataru...!"

He and his friends spun around to look at their hated ex-classmate...

" _ **HEY! WHERE'D HE GO?!**_ " Ryūha snapped.

"He left."

Eyes locked on Ryūnosuke. "Where did that bastard go?!" Shinjin snarled.

"He went back to Sasebo, idiot! He LIVES there now!"

"Where YOU shitheads can't follow, by the way!"

That was a certain purple-haired destroyer of the Ayanami-class, who was gazing in veiled amusement at them, her grey eyes glinting with glee. "After all, we've ALL seen what happens when Yonaga-san swings that katana of hers on someone's neck," Akebono added, which made the boys pale in horror as they instantly imagined what the fifth of the Yamato-class could do to any of them if they pissed her off enough to earn such a fate. And attacking her navigation officer's _**grandnephew**_...!

"Lum's not going to save you now, you shitty jerks!" the destroyer added.

Hearing that made many of the boys wail in grief...

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, on Hakuzaki-chō, that moment...**_

"So we managed to get all the girls calmed down?"

"Yes, Healer. Including Miss Hyūji."

A sigh echoed through the curtained door of this particular cubicle inside the transformed gymnasium building. "Praise the Spirits for that small favour!" the voice of the Gwich'in-born chief medical officer of "W" Commando, Healer Captain John Alexander of Dawson City, sighed. "I've never seen such high levels of ebony mesonium radiation poisoning in anyone since I earned my mastery! What in the name of the Fates was this maniac trying to do with these poor women?!"

"It's hard to tell, Healer Captain," the senior mediwizard and healer's assistant of the commando, Master Warrant Officer Isaac Titus of Old Crow, whispered. "It's a miracle that none of these poor girls were ever made pregnant by all their partners."

"One small favour for them. Keep watch on them, please."

"Of course, Healer Captain. You best get some rest."

"Ah, that will not come for some time yet..."

As the voices of the two magicals faded into the background, a pair of dark brown eyes opened just as the faint hint of a dark energy aura formed around the tall and slender woman that had been on the bed provided for her when she had been moved down here from Nerima. As a deep breath escaped Hyūji Makoto, the teenage track star of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School moved to sit up, glancing around. "Yoiko-sama...?" she gently called out in anticipation.

Hearing no response from the woman she had been specifically tasked to provide comfort with by Arisugawa Yui the previous day, Makoto nodded as she slipped out from under the covers. Noting the plain pyjamas she had been draped in when she had been put to bed, she frowned for a moment. Noting her personal belongings folded neatly on a small shelving unit nearby — including her school track uniform — Makoto sighed before she moved to get changed.

If the fifth of the Yamato-class was just as wonderful as Tosa or her friends...!

* * *

 _ **Somewhere...**_

A beeping noise echoed through the dark room.

"Ah! Finally," Murata Eiichi whispered, his lips twisting into a delighted leer...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Leicheblut Schweinehunde** — Plural of _leicheblut Schweinhund_ ("corpse-blood pig-dog"); **Persische Drecksauen** — Dirty Persian pigs; **Avalonianer** — Avalonian; **Blauhäutige hirnlose Ochsen** — Brainless blue-skinned oxen; **Gebirgsjäger** — Literally "mountain huntsman", this is the standard term for mountain light infantry; **Bergmütze** — Ski cap; **Edelweiß** — Literally "noble white", this is the German name for _Leontopodium alpinum_ , an Alpine mountain daisy; **Heiligtümer des Todes** — Deathly Hallows; **Sturmscharführerin** — Feminized version of **Sturmscharführer** ("storm squad leader"), the senior enlisted rank in the Schutzstaffel; **Hurensohn** — Son of a bitch; **Oberstabsfeldwebel** — Master Staff Sergeant, the senior enlisted rank in the German Army (NATO rank code OR-9); **Jōkyūjunshikan** — Literally "superior sergeant-major", the Japanese equivalent title of "Oberstabsfeldwebel"; **Seishin Shuriken Arashi** — Psychic Throwing Star Storm; **Gierige sauen** — Greedy pigs; **Erstes Bataillon** — First Battalion; **Schwarze Mädchen** — Black Maidens; **Seishin Rēzā Kōzen** — Psychic Laser Beam; **Shinigurui** — Crazed to die; **Samgyet'ang** — Ginseng chicken soup; **Teikoku Mahō-gun** — Imperial Magical Army; **Haegun ch'ŏnnyŏ** — Literally "navy maiden", the Korean term for shipgirls; **Namhae** — Literally "south sea", the part of the East China Sea closest to Korea; **Ujiko** — Layman worshipper who helps care for a Shintō shrine; **Signore e signori** — Ladies and gentlemen; **Außerirdische Liebhaber** — Alien lovers.

Shipgirls introduced here:

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Mamiya** — Ōtani Shizuka

 _ **KOREA  
**_ **TKK Ch'ungmu** (ex-USS Erben) — Hallie Ŭnji Erben

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Albacore** — Helen Raye Rimmer


	12. The Secret of Haruna's Friend

**_DISCLAIMER:_** ** _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_** **Copyright Act** ** _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, Tuesday 23 May, an hour after lunch...**_

"Oh, I'm stuffed..."

"Roll me to the bunk, Rinnie..."

Prinz Eugen laughed as San Francisco leaned over to drape herself over the ex-German heavy cruiser's shoulder, she immediately moving to playfully shove her older squadron-mate off. Watching from from across the table, Yonaga smiled on seeing the camaraderie between the nisei-shaped treaty cruiser named after the City by the Bay and the non-compliant cruiser named after Austria's most famous general. "Lazy idiot!" Eugen scolded. "What would your father say?!"

Both girls gazed upon each other, then they laughed as Yonaga sipped her tea. Beside her, her youngest sister Izumi could only impishly smile at such a show of positive exuberance between Eugen and her friend. «At least Catarina-san is recovering well from her experience alongside Luise-san, Onē-sama,» the young-looking battleship with the long black hair in the high ponytail preferred by her effectively second-eldest sister flashed via signal lamp behind her reading glasses. «She's always been bothered because she was originally made in Germany, yet answered the call in America. I'm so glad that Margarethe-san was so willing to defend her choice like that, even convincing Luise-san about the righteousness of that choice.»

«Yes, it was well-argued on young Margarethe's part,» the carrier mused as she sipped her tea. «And it's understandable that Catarina-san would have mixed feelings about whom she should be loyal to. Given that it was nearly a year between her summoning at Kitsap and the summoning of her old fleet mates at Mürwik...» — here, she tried not to laugh after remembering what Hood told her about that insane free-for-all the veterans of the Hochseeflotte and the Kriegsmarine engaged in when they had responded to the summons en masse that day — «...she had time to adjust to being _United States Ship_ Prinz Eugen instead of being _Deutsches Marineschiff_ Prinz Eugen.» She then made a face. «After all, her spiritual homeland neither has a kaiser nor an ocean coast, so she couldn't realistically serve as _Österreichisches Marineschiff_ Prinz Eugen.»

"So goes the ways of Empire."

That was Eugen, who was giving the two larger ships an amused look. "Apologies, Catarina-san. We didn't mean to make you and Michiko-san feel left out of the conversation," Yonaga stated. "So what are our admiral's plans now?"

"Well, with so many now forming the Einsatzgruppe Sasebo..." Here, the spiritual native of Paris and Vienna blushed. "Sorry! Sasebo Task Force, I mean!" As Izumi giggled, the cruiser shrugged. "We need to do exercises together as we get used to each shipgirl's capabilities. Especially your own, Frau Kapitän. Your anti-aircraft missiles give us nearly the same range as your sisters' main cannon. They could prove decisive in case we have a new princess move into the areas once controlled by Kei's elder sister, much less that one princess down in the South China Sea we destroyed two years ago. Given how often unter-..." Again, she caught herself. "I mean submarines and destroyers have been seen in the Korea Straits, the East Sea, the Sōya Strait and the Okhótskoe Móre, there has to be some installation princess supporting them somewhere..."

"'East Sea'?" Yonaga asked.

"The 'Sea of Japan' as you would know it, Yoiko," San Francisco stated as she gave the other shipgirl a warning look. "Given how much the Koreans were willing to pour food into Japan even when they were also trying to help their cousins in the north recover from when the Abyssals decided to get rid of Kim Chŏng'ŭn and his regime in P'yŏng'yang after they tried to fire nuke-tipped missiles at them seven years ago, people in Kyōto decided to drop any objections about making 'Tonghae' and its translations the internationally recognized name of that body of water." She sipped her coffee before she shook her head, recalling the one time she had been deployed to Wŏnsan on the East Sea coast escorting a special convoy from Seattle to hep in relief efforts. "It's a miracle the South didn't have issues with radioactive fallout from across the DMZ and that they could forge trade links with their cousins in Killim, Yonyŏng and Namhug'yong-gang north of the Tuman and the Amnok Rivers. With what reports I've read of what South Korean troops found when they hit the outskirts of areas where there were large concentrations of military forces north of the DMZ, it was ugly. People are still dying there."

A churlish smile crossed Yonaga's face. "Yes, Brent-san told the crew about that so-called 'dear leader' and his 'great' father." As the shipgirls and human personnel listening to this all laughed — conversations among friends and co-workers tended to fall by the wayside in the mess hall whenever a capital ship, especially an experienced one, began speaking on philosophical matters — she shook her head. "To those of you of that ancient land here today, know that the vengeance your lost countrymen cry out for from beyond the Veil of Heaven will come!" she then called out loud and clear, making several people in the uniform of the Navy of the United Korean Republic all perk and gaze her way. "You gave us so many things over the last millennia and more. The crass and filthy way your ancestors were treated — especially during the times of the latter years of Meiji, the whole of Taishō and the early part of Shōwa — is a stain on the honour of all Japan, all the way to Tennō himself." As gasps escaped many of the Japanese personnel there on hearing that assertion, the carrier smiled. "I spoke to Tennō about your presence here after I returned from Scotland to look in on Reiko-san's son. I know of those loud fools who decry your people as 'thieves' for what happened in Chinhae over the last five years. That you gave a true home for many incomplete sisters to several of my fleet mates speaks highly of the ethics the great yangban scholars such as Master Toegye and Master Yulgok promulgated to the people of your land." She gave them a delighted smile. "That, of course, being always tempered by the warm heart Master Yulgok's wise mother always projected in the art she painted and the poems she wrote...to say anything of the bravery those like Admiral Yi Sunshin showed when he defended his country from warlords here to his very death at Noryang, urging his warriors on to final victory even when he was felled by a bullet!"

A wild scream escaped many of the Korean service personnel there as they toasted the carrier with their drinks, all of them shouting " _ **YONAGA MANSE!**_ " in return. As friends from other nations all got to their feet and cheered that show of respect and thanks from this shipgirl who unintentionally symbolized elements of Japan's imperial past many in the island nation preferred to forget just as most Germans would wish the Nazi period would finally fade from their own collective memories and history, Yonaga turned back to her tea to finish it. Even if she hadn't been appointed fleet flagship for the Sasebo Task Force, she had to make sure there would be no dissension among the ranks when they went out to destroy the enemy...

"Yoiko-san!"

Yonaga's head snapped over. "What is it, Sumie-san?"

Shimakaze screeched to a halt close to the carrier. "You gotta come quick!" the blonde destroyer said as she pointed to a place just beyond the front gates. "Four of my sisters are being attacked by a bunch of old geezers..."

The seventh carrier was quickly on her feet and racing out of the room, with Izumi, Eugen and San Francisco following her at flank speed. Watching them go, Shimakaze whistled. "Damn! I'd thought they be all slow...!"

She raced off after them, with a mixture of Japanese and American naval shore patrolmen charging after the destroyer...

* * *

 _ **Between the base grounds and K**_ _ **ōkai Junior High School, that moment...**_

She once hated all Japanese.

It was understandable, of course.

Having been kidnapped from her home village of Nogŭn-ni once she had been detected to possess magic long before she would have entered grade school, Kim Ŭijin had been taken to a desolate island way out in the Pacific. There, she had been hurt again and again by mean Japanese soldiers of a special Imperial Army unit in hope of awakening her magic in a specific way so she could be used against the nice Americans who were trying to liberate her homeland and other places.

It didn't happen until very late in what the Japanese called the Greater East Asia War. One day, a large number of magical American Marines and Canadian soldiers wearing tailed fur hats came to the island to put a stop to what the mean Japanese soldiers were doing to young children. Along with Ŭijin on that island were dozens of others who had been captured by the mean soldiers over the years to be hurt like she was, even children of European and American couples who had been living in China and Korea at the time, not to mention Japanese children who worshipped the God of the Christians from the island of Kyūshū. Ŭijin and her friends were sealed in a cave by magic and black jewel-like stones while the mean soldiers fought a vicious battle over several days against the attacking Allies. Just as one of the mean soldiers came to the cave to make the children lash out at the Americans and Canadians coming to save them all, a nicer group of Japanese soldiers arrived on the island, led by a woman with spooky black eyes. They ended up helping the Allies beat up the mean soldiers, then they tied them up on the parade ground. The woman then read something that made the mean soldiers scream out in agony and die.

But try as the Allied soldiers and their nice Japanese friends might over the following week, they couldn't find where the children had been hidden, even after Ŭijin and her friends screamed out many times for them to come to the cave.

Once the soldiers sadly departed after giving up the search, the children fell asleep, tired and exhausted as well as starving. Fortunately, the magic inside them kept them alive; even if they still felt the urge to eat, they wouldn't succumb to hunger. Over a period of time whose length the children couldn't comprehend, the black crystals that shielded them from the Allied magical soldiers changed colour to a pretty dark red shade. When that happened, the children finally managed to get out of the cave to find that the camp the mean soldiers created for them was effectively wrecked. Fortunately, there was enough food on the island to keep them healthy and happy. Even more so, there were many books in many languages that helped teach the children all about magic, having survived thanks to a small library hidden in one of the undamaged barrack blocks.

In those books were descriptions of the type of magic the mean soldiers wanted them to use.

 _ **Obscurial.**_

After reading what the soldiers of Unit 731 wanted to do, Ŭijin cried.

She didn't want to become a MONSTER!

Nor did all her many friends.

So they stayed on Nakanotori-shima.

Until the day the umibōzu — as Ŭijin's friend Miyake Harumi called them — came.

While the children were powerful in their own right, the umibōzu — or "Abyssals" as they later came to be called around the world — just kept coming. Taunting the children many times with offers to become like them, giving them a chance to lash out at the stupid humans who left them on the island to die, away from families and friends. Fortunately, the magic the children possessed was powerful; mixed with the red crystals they now wore as jewellery, they were able to beat back the mean things time and time again. However, the children soon realized the best thing to do was to get off the island and get to Japan; they were running out of food since the Abyssals were stopping them from fishing and the creatures just didn't seem to want to leave them alone. Finally, John Granger — an English boy whose parents lived in Shànghǎi — discovered how to apparate. Combining their powers, the children teleported off to appear in Fukuoka, a nice city on Kyūshū, seven years ago.

Fortunately, the Japanese military authorities these days were far much nicer. Assuming the children were just refugees having come to Japan from China after the Abyssals totally devastated the eastern half of the country, they were allowed to reside in the great port city, given the chance to have something of normal lives even if they didn't have parents or guardians protecting them. Cared for by missionaries from around the world, the children of Nakanotori-shima took the chance to learn about the previous seven decades of history in the normal world so they wouldn't be discovered in case relatives of soldiers from Unit 731 were still around and wanted to use them against innocent people. Along the way, Ŭijin and her friends learned of shipgirls, the noble spirits of warships brought to life as human women who were the only ones who could fight the Abyssals on even ground. Naturally, the native of Nogŭn-ni in Ch'ungch'ŏngbuk-to became a fan of all the many Korean shipgirls who were helping transport food across the East Sea from their homeland to ensure people in Japan didn't starve.

Now four of those girls who had answered the call to arms at Chinhae — Project V6 class destroyers Pongp'ung, T'aekp'ung, Ch'ungp'ung and T'anp'ung — were visiting Sasebo after escorting a food convoy from Pusan to Shimonoseki.

Sure enough, there were mean people here.

People who HATED the fact that those nice Korean shipgirls — who could have been Japanese shipgirls; Ŭijin didn't really understand what happened there — were actually serving the newly reunited country and not Japan itself.

And were willing to even HURT them to make them serve Japan!

Seeing the loud and rowdy crowd move to entrap the blonde-haired shipgirls and force them away from the main gate of the base, Ŭijin shuddered as she felt a terrible surge of power race up from her heart to begin to change her.

She had control over her power...

...but in her heart, she was still a child.

Nice people were being hurt...

...and she had the power to stop the mean ones from hurting them...

* * *

 _ **K**_ _ **ōkai Junior High School...**_

"What the HELL...?!"

Roma looked over at Moroboshi Ataru. "What is it?"

The Terran "tag race champion" shuddered as that heavy wave of ki washed over him for a second, then his left eye glowed brightly. " **Someone is about to become very angry at someone, my Other** ," he said in that booming metallic voice that indicated that his own hidden side was about to come roaring forth from the depths of his soul to overcome him. " **Someone who doesn't approve of those loud-mouthed fools who hate the idea of our Korean friends 'stealing' shipgirls.** "

Hearing that, the third of the Littorio-class battleships hissed. "Merde...!"

* * *

 _ **By the front gate...**_

" _ **WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!**_ "

The small crowd of elderly gentlemen — augmented by younger boys who seemed to be normal bōsōzoku to the few onlookers safely off to the sides — spun on hearing that cold woman's voice, then they brightened on noting who was now approaching them. " _ **YONAGA BANZAI!**_ " their obvious leader — who was dressed in an Imperial Army uniform with the markings of the Kempeitai on the sleeves, corporal's tabs on his collars — screamed in relief on noting the fifth of the Yamato-class had come.

" _ **YONAGA BANZAI!**_ " the others of the crowd surrounding the shipgirls who appeared to be close sisters to Shimakaze howled.

" _ **SILENCE!**_ "

Their jaws all snapped closed as they stared in confusion at Yonaga. Trying not to shake her head in disapproval at the sight of such worthless dregs moving to constrain Shimakaze's younger sisters from moving about freely, the carrier then focused her attention on Pongp'ung. "Pongp'ung-nari, I apologize on behalf of Tennō and the people of Japan for the actions of these hooligans." As the crowd of militarists gasped on hearing her address the shipgirl who should possess the "proper" name "Minekaze" by that warped name — not to mention use one of the dog-eaters' honorifics for her...to say anything of using the name of the HEAVENLY SOVEREIGN to denounce loyal natives of Japan in PUBLIC! — Yonaga bowed her head to the young destroyer before she focused anew on the protesters. "All of you, move away from them now," she ordered as her hand rested on her katana, her thumb pushing the blade out of the scabbard slightly. "Disperse and never return."

The militarists all shuddered...

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

Ŭijin's eyes widened on hearing that name.

 _ **Yonaga.**_

She shuddered as she felt the long-buried rage that had clouded her heart and overcome her soul many times over the last seven decades since she was first brought to Nakanotori-shima recede as a sense of hope filled her soul.

 _ **The Angry One**_.

The one being the umibōzu feared above all else.

She was HERE!

And if she was willing to protect the pretty Korean shipgirls...?

"Ŭijin-a?"

Ŭijin perked, then turned before smiling as a Japanese girl her physical age came up to join her. Thanks to what had happened to them on that island, the would-be Obscurials had been frozen in time for decades, only aging when they moved to Fukuoka. Both girls were now hiding themselves behind the corner of a wall framing a family home just a block away. "What's going on?" Miyake Harumi asked before she looked around the corner herself, then she blinked. "Who are they?"

"Mean people, Harumi-chan," Ŭijin answered. The children of Nakanotori-shima always used the proper child honorifics for the one they were addressing in their native language. "Those are Korean destroyer shipgirls who were trying to visit the base. The mean people stopped them and tried to hurt them before Yonaga-daegamnim came to make them go away."

Harumi blinked, then she shuddered as one of the old men — dressed in an all-too familiar Imperial Army uniform — began to scream at the tall and muscular carrier. As several other shipgirls — Yonaga's little sister Izumi, the ex-German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, American heavy cruiser San Francisco and the Korean destroyers' elder half-sister Shimakaze — all moved to glare at the yelling old man and his snarling friends, her own heart started to shudder as the darkness overcame her.

"Harumi-chan..." Ŭijin moaned on sensing that...

* * *

 _ **By the gate...**_

" _ **...SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF, YONAGA-SAMA! USING THE SACRED NAME OF TENN**_ _ **Ō**_ _ **TO ACTUALLY**_ **DEFEND** _ **THOSE FILTHY DOG-EATING THIEVES FOR DEFYING THEIR BETTERS! WE TRIED TO CIVILIZE THEM ALL THOSE YEARS AGO! YOU ACTUALLY SUPPORT THEIR**_ **STEALING** _ **OUR SHIPGIRLS...?!**_ "

" _ **SILENCE!**_ "

The former Kempeitai officer was nearly blasted down by Yonaga's scream. As the other militarists began to cower from the tall carrier, the fifth of the Yamato-class could only sneer as she glared at him. "I speak with Tennō's authority, Corporal," she icily declared as her grey eyes flared. "YOU do not. None of you do!" As the small crowd of bystanders watching this scene cheered on hearing that, the carrier focused on the former Imperial Army military policeman. "You LOST that right when your superiors played games with Tennō's late father in the 1930s, deceiving him into thinking that it was right and proper to brutally RAPE neighbouring countries like the good soldiers of this land were BRAINWASHED into believing was right and proper all those years ago! Where did the food you've eaten recently come from?!" She indicated the four Korean destroyers in their midst. "It was because of them! Not because of some obligation to this land; Tennō relieved them of any such bonds four years ago! They did it — as their leaders in Kyŏngbok-kung in ancient Sŏul so allowed — out of simple HUMANITY!" She shook her head. "You are no samurai, nor a proper heir of one! You are a mere BANDIT who preys on innocent people...!"

The old man shuddered. " _ **TRAITOR...!**_ "

" _ **YOU LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU MONSTER!**_ "

Yonaga's head perked up...

...just as a tidal wave of smoky dark energy surged down the street from a nearby corner, ripping up the pavement and knocking cars aside as it seemed to focus directly on the crowd of militarists and their young bōsōzoku companions. As Pongp'ung and her sisters all dropped to the street to get clear of that killing wave of energy, it smashed into the crowd, ripping them apart as if they had just encountered a mass gathering of whirling saw blades. As Shimakaze joined her half-sisters on the deck, Yonaga stood her ground, allowing her reinforced armour to deflect the magic that just slaughtered two dozen people in the blink of an eye. While Izumi wasn't visibly bothered by this horrible burst of magic, both San Francisco and Prinz Eugen screamed as slashing cuts appeared on their faces and uniforms; even if they had armour, it wasn't reinforced by mesonium as the larger carrier had been blessed with thanks to her long imprisonment in Sano-wan. While the onlookers screamed and fled the scene and the crowd of American and Japanese security personnel moved to seek cover, the whirlpool of energy seemed to stop and form what looked like a classic image of a black hole for a moment...before it melted into a shuddering girl not even ten years of age, dressed in in a Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks T-shirt under a stylish jean jumper. Before anyone could ask anything, another girl came running out from behind the corner of a wall to join her. "Harumi-chan!"

"You alright, Captain?"

Yonaga turned...then she blinked on seeing a scowling, silver-haired American marine master gunnery sergeant, a wand in his hand as he aimed it in the general direction of the two children. "Seventh Marine Division?" she asked.

"Seventy-fifth Marine Regiment, Company 'C', Master Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Beckett, Ilvermorny Masters Class of 1938, at your service, Captain Itō," he said with a polite smile and a proper salute, which Yonaga returned while several of his normal friends moved to helped the wounded cruisers nearby. The look of pride on his face after he announced all that made the carrier nod in approval. "Assigned as special security augmentation to the Kyūshū Magical Association."

Yonaga nodded again before she perked as the other girl — clearly Korean even if she was dressed the same way as her friend — looked at the one who had just slaughtered the militarist protesters like she just squashed some very unwanted bugs. "Harumi-chan!" the other girl scolded. "Say you're sorry!" She pointed at the moaning Eugen and San Francisco in emphasis before she looked at her friend. "They're only cruisers! They're not as armoured as Taegam-nim is! Pabo!"

Harumi wailed as Yonaga blushed at being called THAT. "I'm sorry!"

"Fix it up!"

Nodding as if she had been scolded by her mother, the Japanese girl then held out her hand towards Prinz Eugen and San Francisco. Both cruisers then seemed to glow as magic flowed into their bodies, instantly healing their wounds and repairing their clothes. As MGySgt Beckett gaped on seeing that, Harumi lowered her hand, then she ran over to bowl Eugen over with a hug. " _ **I'M SORRY!**_ " the native of Kyūshū wailed as she nearly crushed the steam out of the cruiser's boilers.

Yonaga stared at this, then she perked as Izumi tugged her jacket. "Onē-sama, what is she?" the younger battleship hissed.

"Obscurial, ma'am," Beckett answered.

That made his platoon commander, Lieutenant Doug Papich, gaze at the native of Chicago. "Master Guns, didn't you once tell me after we were briefed on Nakanotori-shima that any kid that becomes an obscurial can't control their magic?"

The older man nodded. "Aye, sir! That's what I was taught when I went for specialist training at Seven Hills before the damned war started after Pearl Harbour. This..." He shook his head as he waved to the sobbing Harumi, who was now being comforted by a doting Eugen. "This is totally beyond anyone's experience, sir. I've seen control of magic at that level only ONCE in my lifetime." As Papich gazed once more at him, Beckett shuddered. "Admiral Heather Thompkins, sir."

"Look on the little ones' wrists, Master Gunnery Sergeant."

Hearing Yonaga's warning, Beckett looked at Harumi...

...then he wryly chuckled on seeing the beautiful silver lace bracelets on the girl's lower arms, the strands wrapped tightly around a dozen or so glowing dark red crystals. "Yeah, that would pretty much explain it, Captain."

The carrier then sighed. "Mijin-ssi, you and your sisters care for your young countryman there," she then bade Pongp'ung, nodding towards the other girl who had come to the scene; she had been quick to spot the mesonium-lined bracelets she also wore. As the four Korean destroyers and Shimakaze nodded, Yonaga sighed before she perked, then she glanced in the general direction of Kōkai Junior High School. A semi-humanoid creature was cloaked in darkness near an overhanging tree, his place marked by a glowing left eye. Nodding faintly at her junior navigation officer's grandnephew, she then gazed on Eugen. "Bring the child with us, Catarina-san. We'll make sure they're properly fed before we learn their stories."

"Jawohl, Frau Kapitän!" the ex-German cruiser said with a curt nod...

* * *

 _ **Admiral Richardson's office, an hour later...**_

"How much control over their magic do these kids have, Miss Negako?"

"At least seventy percent, John," Moroboshi Negako said as she gently massaged the various kyūsho on Kim Ŭijin's face and body, making the native of Nogŭn-ni giggle every time the ninjutsu grandmaster did that. "Save for when she encounters something that reminds her of her experiences on Nakanotori-shima, she is a young girl who discovered and mastered her magic far sooner than what one might expect of someone who has not been invited to commence formal education."

As Miyake Harumi ate the beautiful muffins that had been provided to her and her friend by the Sasebo culinary staff, Josiah Bartlet took a deep breath. As he was the senior ranking person in the room, he had placed himself at John Richardson's desk, the admiral standing to his left rear. "If you people scoured that island, Master Gunnery Sergeant, how in the name of God did you miss over three dozen children trapped in a cave?!" the American president then asked as he tried to keep his own temper under control. "How did General Yomigawa's people miss that?! She knew the whole story of that damned place!"

"Magic and ebony mesonium, Mister President. Not to mention probable use of the Fidelius charm to keep the cave's location secret," Thomas Beckett answered. "Whoever was the one who imprisoned those kids used ebony mesonium crystals to reinforce his magic to keep them penned there. With that, the kids had no way to break out of there even if they allowed their obscuruses reign over their magic to get them free. They weren't trained to make proper use of their magic; doing THAT would have had them turn against their captors right then and there." As the others nodded in understanding, the native of Chicago took a breath. "Even if the man who put a Fidelius on the cave died — if it was that, by the way! — the crystals would have hidden them from us. We didn't think to get General Raeburn over to scan the island; she was too busy cleaning up things after the Battle of New York." That was the last major metahuman battle between the War Hawks and the Übermenschen during hostilities, which effectively wrecked the latter force even if survivors were able to mount one tragically successful "banzai charge" against the Liberty Legion at the Battle of Toronto after VJ Day. "Fortunately, their magic was so strong that, over time, they subconsciously changed the crystals trapping them to ruby format and 'reprogram' them to allow them out."

"And they decided to live there until the Abyssals came," Leo McGarry noted as people gazed in awe at the children.

"The umibōzu wouldn't leave us alone."

That was Harumi, who was having her face wiped by a smiling Eugen with a handkerchief. "So you redeployed to Fukuoka, then moved to reconnect with normal society," Yonaga then concluded. "What made you come to Sasebo, young one?"

"Ŭijin-a wanted to see the Korean shipgirls, Obā-chan."

Eyes then locked on the now-blushing native of Nogŭn-ni, who was now having her face stuffed by Ch'ungp'ung and T'anp'ung, both of whom had lunch boxes full of freshly-cooked pulgogi accompanied by nine side dishes in a proper kuch'ŏp-pansang setting, which would normally be served to high nobility in old Chosŏn, not to a farmer's child from rural Ch'ungch'ŏng! "I do believe Miss Kim certainly got her chance to do that, Miss Miyake," Bartlet stated, grateful that rooms like this had been modified by magic and Avalonian technology to allow people to speak their own languages and be understood by all in range of the translation field. "So, Professor, how would the authorities here consider this current situation?"

People gazed on the director of the Kyūshū Magical Association, Professor Hata Kayoko. After a moment, the headmistress of the Dejima School of Wizardry and Witchcraft in Nagasaki and veteran of the War of Liberation — she had been a major in the Third "Nine Kingdoms" Brigade of the Greater East Asia Liberation Army, having helped in the final removal of European control over Indochina in the early parts of that conflict — took a deep breath. "Obscurials are seen as very tragic figures, Mister President," she declared. "Any magical 'accidents' due to an obscurial losing control over herself — even those which cause fatalities among magicals or normals — are not seen as their responsibility. Even if Harumi-chan and Ŭijin-a possess considerable control over their magic — as witness what happened to Commander von Savoyen and Commander Norton — the outburst provoked by that idiot on the street earlier was enough to make Harumi-chan lose total control over herself." She gazed on Harumi, who now had a shamed look on her face. "It wasn't your fault, Harumi-chan. You're suffering from what is called 'post-traumatic stress disorder' these days. It used to be called 'shell shock' and 'battle fatigue' back in your day."

Harumi blinked. "I'm not a soldier...!"

"You would have been a child slave soldier, Harumi," Josh Lyman stated with as tender a voice as he could use. "One who never got the chance to decide to serve." As the others in the room nodded, the Connecticut native smirked. "But you proved yourself better than the creeps that put you and Ŭijin and all your friends in that cave." As the girl brightened on hearing that, Lyman winked. "You even proved much better than those nasty umibōzu you beat up on the island."

"Why do they hurt people like that?"

That was Ŭijin. "That, Miss Kim, we all wonder," Samuel Quahog breathed out.

Silence fell over the room...

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District Headquarters, two hours later...**_

" _ **THEY'RE ALIVE?!**_ "

A wide-eyed disguised kitsune was staring in stunned disbelief at Gotō Kiichi, now hosting his own meeting of interested parties concerning the incident in Sasebo. In the background, NHK News was relaying information of an "attempted terrorist attack" on four Korean shipgirls by militarist fanatics when they had been visiting friends at Sasebo, said attack having been stopped by the seventh carrier of Operation Z, though there had been fatalities. Privately grateful that the leaders of the Eight Magical Commanderies and their friends in the Royal Canadian Foresters had been on the ball concerning this incident — there was no way those poor kids would be able to take being exposed like that without losing control of their magic — the leader of the Fleet Shipgirl Project for Japan could only smile at the current head miko administering the local base shrine.

"That's according to John, Haru-san. The list of people the missionaries in charge of the Displaced Children's Centre in Fukuoka possess matched the list of the 'test subjects' Unit 731 collected which weren't accounted for by the 75th Marine Regiment and 'T' Commando that Captain Tōgō retrieved from the archives," Gotō stated with a nod to Mikasa before he nodded as a glass of Stolíchnaja was handed to him. "Marshal Múrometsa, are you normally this friendly with subordinates?"

"We are all comrades in dealing with the enemy, Kiití Rjúsukovich," Svetlána Múrometsa stated as she finished pouring drinks for the others. The current marshal in command of the combined shipgirl forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States had gone to Nagasaki to visit her would-be enemy from the Great Patriotic War when news came down from Sasebo. After Yomigawa Tsukiko sensed that Albus Dumbledore — who had probably been roused out of bed when the news got to him at Hogwarts – had teleported to Yokosuka to see what was going on, the former leader of the Greater East Asia Liberation Army transported the old leader of the Moscow Magical Front over to be at this meeting. "Much that I can, in a way, understand what motivated those nekul'túrnyje svin'í to create such things given how woeful this country's industry was prepared to deal with a giant like America, that these málen'kije ángely survived it when the idiots who tried to turn them into obscurials died thanks to this oath to their Tsar you told me about, Tsukíko Makotóvna...!" She toasted Yomigawa with her own shot glass.

"Indeed we are," Dumbledore said.

People took a moment to sip the apple vódka provided by Múrometsa, even the young destroyers now in the room. "Da, it is khoroshó," Hibiki mused from nearby as she nursed her drink with the expertise gained from her old Soviet crew. Much to the amusement of the visiting magical leaders — in addition to Dumbledore, Múrometsa and Yomigawa, there was Headmaster Konoe Konoemon of the Mahora Academy north of Tōkyō, director of the Kantō Magical Association and the effective head of the Eight Commanderies — all the shipgirls who had become close to Harry Potter over the years were at this meeting. While there had been concern from Dumbledore considering the younger-looking destroyers being served vódka, everyone was in control over themselves. "With them here, Garrísha won't have to feel alone during the summer away from Khogvárts."

"Hai, Harry-chan needs more friends. And magical ones at that," Shinano said with a nod. "Those poor children were hurt by those awful people, but they've been able to live in peace on that island until the Abyssals chased them away and they came back to civilization. Yes, it was just terrible that no one realized they were alive and living all alone on that island..." The bespectacled carrier looked grim as she added, "I hope some of those monsters are still alive these days..."

"Why do you hope that, Shizuka-chan?" Musashi asked as she stared in shock at her sister.

A grim look answered. "So Onē-sama can have their heads, Onē-san!" As icy chuckles filled the room at that observation, Shinano added, "Not only that, we can't ask Harry-chan's friends from Hogwarts to come visit." Here, she nodded to Fawkes, now perched on Inazuma's head. "None have a nice phoenix to help move them across Eurasia."

As Fawkes trilled on being recognized by the second of the Yamato-class to be transformed into a carrier, Yamato herself nodded as she sipped her vódka. "What of Hoppō-chan?" she asked the visiting magicals. "Given that these children have more than enough cause to dislike Abyssals as a whole, will they be able to recognize the difference between those who want to hurt people and someone like Hoppō-chan, Wokyū-san or any of the others who have become friendly to us?"

"We could do a controlled meeting," Nagato noted. "The news of those children can't be kept hidden from my son when he comes back to Japan next month. I doubt young Jane would want to keep it secret, especially if she moves to make friends with these children as well. Seeing Harry-chan become friends with these children would certainly help suppress Hoppō-chan's fear. She's heard many stories about the 'mean kids' who always beat up Abyssals around that island..."

"Pity we never realized what that really meant," Mikasa stated as she sipped her own drink. While she would have preferred a good and aged scotch instead, she had both the British and Japanese sense of good manners to not turn down the offered vódka from Múrometsa, a woman who was a hero in many ways to millions of magicals across all of Eurasia. "We could have found these children years ago and helped them try to break free of whatever other influence might be on them."

"Hopefully, their time on that island would have cleansed them of their original hatred for the maniacs who wanted to turn them into living weapons," Ono Haru breathed out as she tried not to give into a sudden urge to transform into her normal vulpine therianthropic form and allow the tsunami of feelings that had haunted her since she first learned of that cursed "phantom island" to finally vent forth. "If they were able to fight the Abyssals off for so long...!"

"Would these parasites that are said to develop inside an obscurial be still there in the children?" Kongō asked.

"I strongly doubt it, Onē-sama," Kirishima answered.

Eyes locked on the bespectacled fast battleship. "What's your theory about that, Isabel-chan?" Yomigawa bade.

"According to what I read in Scamander-sensei's work, an obscurus develops when a magical child is doing her best to resist the urge to use magic in a very extreme way. Almost like Harry-chan could have become hadn't Reiko-san rescued him." As Dumbledore winced again on hearing that dark theory concerning Nagato's son, the third of the Kongō-class added, "The researchers of Unit 731 on Nakanotori-shima had up to about five years to fully induce this process. Then the Foresters and the Seventh Marine Division came to rescue them. Some of them were used against the attackers, but most were sealed in that cave. Those children then saw you, Yomigawa-gensui, read the Magical Imperial Rescript declaring that Shōwa Tennō had removed all support for their work, thus killing them because they had 'betrayed' Tennō. Then they were left alone after the Foresters and the Marines tried their hardest to find them. A positive experience that reflected well on them as they remained in that cave; this probably helped them free themselves over time when the mesonium binding them turned into ruby format. Once free of that cave, they had DECADES to spend time with each other in peace and harmony, becoming a family in all but name." As the others nodded, Kirishima shrugged. "In my eyes, the obscuruses within their bodies would logically lose strength and eventually disappear. Yes, they still have the ability to focus that level of magic on a desired target — which the Abyssals gave them more than ample opportunity to practice — but they had _**years**_ of being just normal children."

"Playing with a remarkable 'toy' called 'magic'," Konoe noted as he stroked his beard. As Dumbledore nodded in turn — the respect the heads of Hogwarts and Mahora held for each other was well known worldwide; Konoe Konoemon was the British wizard's chief ally when dealing with political enemies in the chambers of the ICW in Geneva — the leader of the Eight Commanderies smiled. "Most likely, Isabel-chan, your theory is correct. Given that mesonium is involved..."

"Would Onē-sama be able to deal with them still?" Musashi asked from her sister's side. "Much less, would she have time to deal with them, much less the patience? She's still trying to get used to being back in civilization 'again'."

"She could teach them some things, but I'd turn legal custody of these kids to other people," Enterprise noted as New Jersey nodded in agreement. "Don't get me wrong. Shipgirls can do wonders for normal children; just look at what Reiko's done with little Harry." People grinned on seeing Nagato blush at that compliment by the second of the Yorktown-class carriers. "Yoiko's a whole different kettle of fish. If we want those kids to become proper samurai, she's the girl to teach them. But just to be normal kids?" She shook her head. "No. Much that Yoiko's a good person deep down, I'd pick other people."

"Perhaps yourself and Yasuko-san, Yvonne-san?" Gotō wondered.

The most famous ships of two navies perked on hearing that, then they gazed on each other. People fell silent as lights flashed in their eyes while the inner hearts of the quite-human women known to close friends as Itō Yasuko and Yvonne Swanson discussed this matter between themselves. As the others politely turned away so as to not "eavesdrop" on that conversation between the long-time lovers, Dumbledore gazed upon Tenryū. "You yourself could be one of those candidates, Tamiyo," the headmaster of Hogwarts proposed, making the tomboyish cruiser gape. "Yours and your sister's caring for young Tsukiko, Himeko, Ikue and Inoue here is known and respected everywhere, even among conservative magicals in Europe." He chuckled as the four Akatsuki-class destroyers blushed on hearing that compliment from their friend's new headmaster. "In fact, many of the people who are moving to make other countries follow the example of the Canadians, the Australians and the New Zealanders when it came to giving shipgirls full legal rights as 'persons' in both the magical and normal realms point to people such as yourself to demonstrate how easily shipgirls can fit into normal society even with their capabilities."

Tenryū blinked. "Well...!"

A knock echoed from the door. "Enter!" Gotō barked out.

The door flew open. "Excuse me, Teitoku!"

People gaped. "Rumiko-san! What's wrong?!" Yamato asked.

Tsuruya Rumiko looked as if she had just been caught in the back-blast of one of the temper tantrums her old classmate Redet Lum was infamous for. "You better get some of those Foresters out here quick, Teitoku!" she stated.

"What's going on, Tsuruya-kun?!" Gotō asked.

"Some kid just showed up and she's about to tear apart Wokyū-san with her magic!"

Gasps filled the room...

* * *

 _ **Outside...**_

"Please! Please! Please put Haruna's friend down...!"

Hearing that pained, frantic plea from the fourth of the Kongō-class, the pretty red-haired girl of about ten — dressed similarly to her friends who had been down in Sasebo just two hours before, though she wore a New York Yankees T-shirt instead of one for any of the Japanese professional teams — looked at the crying battleship now being comforted by the strange being who had grown out of an old _**tea set**_ for a moment, then she gazed back at the struggling Abyssal carrier who was now being suspended by sheer willpower in the middle of the air several metres off the ground. "You dumb Jap!" Danielle McWhorter snarled as she tried not to allow the darkness crawling up from her heart to overwhelm her. Even if there was peace now between America and Japan after those huge bombs had been used to make Emperor Hirohito finally call it quits in 1945, the native of Queens didn't have much reason to trust people from this land, her several friends from Nakanotori-shima like Miyake Harumi excluded. "Don't you know what these things do all the time?!" She hissed out as Wokyū gargled, her throat caught in an invisible vise-like grip with the strength of neutronium. "It's things like her that chased us off the island...!"

"No!" Haruna cried. "Wokyū-chan's never hurt anyone! Leave her alone! Let her go! Please! Please let Haruna's friend go!"

"Miss, please calm down!" Rose Potter added. "You can't blame Miss Wokyū for what her sisters did to you and your friends! She's lived close to Yokosuka all the time! She was never close to Ganges Island whatsoever! She didn't hurt you...!"

" _ **YOU LEAVE HOPP**_ _ **Ō**_ _ **'S SISTER ALONE, YOU BIG BULLY!**_ "

Danielle's head snapped over...

...then with a motion like an underhanded softball pitch, she telekinetically sent the screaming Hoppō flying BACKWARDS to smash against the wall of a nearby building, leaving a VERY large indent on the brick and mortar! As the child-like princess moaned while she flopped face-first into the ground, other shipgirls moved to restrain the raging child from Queens — her parents had been Protestant missionaries in occupied Korea before World War Two — and save the struggling Abyssal carrier. Before Akagi and Kaga could get close, Danielle snarled as she allowed her body to melt into pure magical energy, evading the hands of the two elder carriers as she rose into the air. Fortunately, doing so broke her concentration concerning Wokyū, seeing her drop face-first onto the ground with enough power that her clam shell-shaped helmet/flight deck was knocked clear off her head. " _ **WOKY**_ _ **Ū**_ _ **-CHAN!**_ " Haruna called out as she and Rose moved to comfort the dazed carrier.

" _ **HOPP**_ _ **Ō-CHAN**_ _ **!**_ " a horrified Nagato screamed after she burst onto the scene to see her adopted daughter hurt like that, then she spun around to see the raging torrent of energy now out of the grasp of dozens of shipgirls. "Kami-sama...!"

Haru was also on the scene as she stared in horror at the sheer levels of power this woman-child from America had developed over a period spanning seven decades was now letting off. "This is 'control'...?!" the kitsune-born miko hissed in disbelief as Albus Dumbledore, Konoe Konoemon, Yomigawa Tsukiko and Svetlána Múrometsa moved to give themselves clear arcs of fire concerning Danielle, using their magic to try to cage the angry little girl from Queens and ensure no casualties.

"Oh, she's just having her menarche right now."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Darlene...?" Dumbledore said as he turned to look.

The others also looked...

...before they gaped on seeing the girl about Enterprise's height standing there. Dressed in the dark grey skinsuit of a magical battleship in the Royal Canadian Navy, she had pendant **50** on her upper legs in white. Her naval combat dress jacket had the name **SAINT GERMAIN** on the tape over the right breast under a ship's crest appearing to have been inspired by the coat of arms of British Columbia, with a brilliant red sun in a white field sinking into a sea of wavy blue and white lines representing the oceans. Of course, the dual national ensigns worn by warships of the Royal Canadian Navy Magical Service — the Canadian White Ensign with the crossed eagle-and-anchor-under-naval crown once used by Maritime Command as its central sigil after Unification and the black Canadian ensign with the symbol of the Ministry of Magical Affairs of the Dominion in gold in its fly — were on her sleeves. She didn't have her metal wand out...but, much to the surprise of many people who realized this was the second of the Sunbeam-class battleships, she had a black top hat like a stage magician would wear. Turning to Gotō Kiichi as Dumbledore and his friends all relaxed themselves, the newcomer bowed politely as canned stage music echoed all over the scene. That made all the shipgirls blink in confusion before the newcomer turned and tossed the hat right at the churning ball of energy that had been formed from Danielle McWhorter's magic, a lot of mesonium and her own body.

The hat flew like a Frisbee to land perfectly at the "head" of that energy...

...then, with a loud slurping sound, said energy was sucked right INTO the hat!

All the shipgirls gasped as said hat then dropped to the ground, landing perfectly on the grass. Silence then fell as people — including a confused Wokyū, who had been helped back to her feet by Haruna and Rose — stared at the hat...

...before they gasped as the hat began to shudder like it was caught in an earthquake! Calmly walking over as some of the shipgirls quickly heard a muffled girl's voice from inside the hat, Sundown leaned down to pull it up...

...thus allowing a dazed and fully-material Danielle to appear as if she had been ejected from the hat. Sundown then winked at the crowd she was facing, her dark blue eyes twinkling. "With thanks to my wonderful new assistant here, I will now perform a very stupendous feat of magic that you'll never forget!" the battleship with the braided silver-flecked rusty-red hair then declared after conjuring a microphone out of thin air, using a Sonorus charm to allow her voice to carry over the field. "Be assured, ladies and gentlemen, Her Majesty's Ministry of Magical Affairs of the Dominion of Canada does NOT engage in mass obliviations of non-magicals after witnessing a magical event! Fidelius charms work MUCH better in the long term!"

This earned her whoops of laughter from the growing crowd of Foresters who had come to the scene the instant they sensed one of the children of Nakanotori-shima was on the grounds and was about to pound Wokyū into protoplasm. Noting that the Canadians were not doing anything to prepare for some action, the other shipgirls relaxed themselves as they concentrated on what Sundown was about to do. "So, Danielle, if you will place the hat on Miss Wokyū's head, we shall begin..."

Danielle blinked, her face pale as she sensed many people gaze her way...then she nodded before she walked over to levitate the hat onto the head of the Abyssal carrier. "Wokyū...?" the silver-skinned woman then called out...

...before she was sucked right into the hat!

As Haruna screamed out in shock, all the destroyers and submarines seeing this all gasped in awe at such a show. "Wow! Is that what the Ryūseizen can do?!" Kiyoshimo gasped. "She's gotta be able to turn me into a battleship!"

"Poi!" Yūdachi gushed. "Sensei is so POI!"

"At least she calmed that poor girl down!" Inazuma added.

" _ **NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BRING HARUNA'S FRIEND BACK!**_ "

Sundown gazed in amusement at Haruna, who looked as if someone had just stabbed her in the heart. "What makes you think I caused your friend to disappear?" the Canadian battleship then asked as her blue eyes twinkled in amusement.

That caused the fourth of the Kongō-class to come up short. She thought about it for a moment before she sighed. "Haruna would not like it if Sundown-sensei hurt Wokyū-chan," she then said as she tried to loom over the other battleship.

People gaped in disbelief at her. "Harumi! Are you fucking NUTS, girl?!" New Jersey demanded. "Even if she's got just twelve-inch guns, she's got FORTY inches of belt armour and TWENTY of deck armour before you even get into her citadel...!"

Sundown sighed as she waved her hand to shut the other battleship up. "Quiet in the peanut gallery! There ARE children present, Commander!" she snapped, earning her a lethal look from the second of the Iowa-class even if some of the others seeing this laughed at what just happened. Ignoring Jersey, Sundown then reached into the flap of her jacket to pull out a triangular white-and-black cushion the size of the battleship's head, which was shaped like a serving of onigiri.

Haruna gasped. " _ **THAT'S WOKY**_ _ **Ū**_ _ **-CHAN'S CUSHION!**_ "

Sundown was able to deftly dodge the other battleship's attempt at reaching for it. "Yes, it is! And it's magical echo told me a very interesting story! One that's actually quite similar to what happened to Kei's and Anna's sisters!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **WOKY**_ _ **Ū**_ _ **'S A**_ **SHIPGIRL** _ **?!**_ " everyone exclaimed.

Haruna blinked, her eyes wide with shock. "Haruna didn't know...!"

"Of course not!" Sundown stated. "Given the poor thing suffered a rather bad blow to the citadel when she was involved in launching that attack on Okinawa four years ago when Yvonne had to reveal herself to Yasuko..." — here, the second of the Sunbeam-class pointed to Yamato and Enterprise, both of whom perked on being reminded of that day when the then-disguised intelligence officer was forced to use her rigging to save her future lover from an attack by Abyssal-possessed Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers — "...the dear girl didn't remember anything of what motivated her into joining the Abyssals. So she retreated to that island where you met her after the first cushion Anna made for you was taken by those birds. Once you and she became friends after you got sick, the rest is history." As the fourth of the Kongō-class nodded, the Canadian battleship winked. "You're going to make someone here a VERY happy aircraft carrier once she finally wakes up...!"

" _ **HEY! WHAT HAPPENED?! SINCE WHEN'S IT NIGHT HERE...?!**_ "

Enterprise gasped, her blue eyes wide with disbelief as people locked on the now shaking magician's hat. "Yorkie...?!"

Heads snapped her way, then Hōshō gasped. "You mean that Wokyū-san...?!"

"...is...?!" Kaga exclaimed before she gaped at her old rival from Midway.

With a burst of flank speed, the Grey Ghost of the United States Navy lunged over to kneel beside the quaking hat, then taking a second to utter a prayer in hope of getting what she had deeply wanted for so long, she then pulled the hat up...

" _ **OUCH!**_ "

Everyone's jaws dropped on seeing what appeared to be a raven-haired, near-perfect TWIN to Enterprise now splayed on the ground, a confused look crossing her face as the dark glow of Abyssal power forever faded out from her reddish-brown eyes. A glance down to her armoured thigh-high stockings revealed the hull code **5** over the knees. Given that she had never served as a flagship for anyone higher than a rear admiral, she had only two stars in a stack on her khaki working uniform collar in lieu of the five-star rank insignia of a fleet admiral that her sister had. As a brief bout of nausea crossed Yorktown's face, Haruna blinked several times. "Wokyū-chan...is _**Yorktown-san**_...?" she said, looking overwhelmed. "Haruna didn't know...!"

As Rose moved to comfort her girlfriend, Yorktown blinked in confusion as she felt all her boilers light and her internal systems power up. "Huh...?" she breathed out before looking right to see her own sister staring in disbelief at her. "Hey, E...!" the namesake of the last battle of the American Revolutionary War then said with a faint wave. "Did we win...?"

Enterprise blinked several times before she screamed out in delight, lunging over to swamp her sister with a hug that nearly threatened to snap the other carrier's spine. As whoops and cheers echoed over the scene at that reunion, Sundown summoned her top hat and made it vanish. She then gazed at a wide-eyed Danielle McWhorter, who was staring in disbelief at the sight of the first of her class of aircraft carriers returned to proper life as a shipgirl...though understandably confused at finding herself in human form and being embraced by her younger sister, who was ALSO in human form. "Good work, assistant!" the second of the Sunbeam-class battleships then said, which made the Queens native stare in confusion at her.

A wooden sign then appeared before Sunbeam. [ **HEY, SHITHEAD! CAN I GET MY VOICE BACK?!** ]

The older battleship gazed neutrally at a fuming New Jersey. "I seriously have to scourgify your mouth, Commander," Sundown muttered even if she waved her hand to undo the silencing spell she placed on the second of the Iowa-class.

Jersey winced as Sundown headed inside the building...

* * *

 _ **The Yokosuka base cafeteria, suppertime...**_

"Welcome back, Lieutenant Livingston."

Blushing madly, the first of her class of aircraft carriers reached over to gently grasp the hand of her new commander-in-chief. "It's good to be back, sir," Yorktown stated, trying not to fluster as the assembled shipgirls and normal people inside the cafeteria all whooped in delight. "I just wish I could remember what happened to me. If what Commander Chihaya and Miss Potter told me about my being this 'Wokyū' person is true, I've been derelict from duty for years..."

"Colonel Bolton, what did your healers discover?" Professor Samuel Quahog then asked as he gazed upon the current commanding officer of "W" Commando, who had stood off to one side while Josiah Bartlet took Yorktown's oath of duty.

"Complete blank memories from the moment she finally foundered off Midway to today, Colonel Quahog," Kenneth Bolton answered. Shaking his head, the native of Whitehorse then gazed upon Yorktown, who gave him an appreciative look in return. "There are some faeries within her hull at this time, mostly the reincarnations of those of her crew who died in that battle. She can muster her torpedo bomber squadron, but that's as far as her flight capabilities go at this time."

"Which is not good," a certain carrier then mused from nearby, that cold voice making Yorktown shudder as she recalled what her sister had told her about this particular shipgirl and what might have happened back in 1941 hadn't a certain earthquake stopped the fifth of the Yamato-class from fully participating in Operation Z. "While it was quite advanced for its day after its introduction to service, the Douglas TBD Devastator was a flying target by the time Operation MI came about."

"A whole squadron. Fifteen brave crews."

Yorktown gazed on Akagi, surprised to see a sad look on the other carrier's face. "Who said that?" the elder of her class asked.

"Admiral Nagumo," the converted battlecruiser replied.

"That should be amended."

Yorktown gazed upon Kaga. "Eh?"

" _ **Three**_ whole squadrons. **_Thirty-seven_** brave crews," the converted battleship said in a voice of ashes. "They came at us so gallantly. Like the men who fought at places like Bunker Hill and Fredericksburg. Without any escort." She shook her head. "There was no honour in it whatsoever." Gazing upon Bartlet, Kaga then straightened to attention before bowing deeply to him. "Such a dishonourable thing will never happen again, Bartlet-daitōryō. My life is dedicated to see that happen."

The former governor of New Hampshire smiled. "Remember what His Majesty told you when you reported for duty, Kei."

Kaga gazed upon him, then she sighed. "You are lucky, sir. To me, the shame of everything from Operation Z onward..." She shook her head before she walked over to the table where her friends from the Kidō Butai were having supper.

Yorktown watched her go, then she shuddered. "She won't do hara-kiri, will she?"

"It is our way, Eleanor-san."

Gazing at Akagi, the American carrier shuddered before she gaped. "No! Don't do that, Anna! You got your whole damned life ahead of you! It wasn't your fault! It was the fault of the stupid politicians that got us all into that damned war in the first place!" She grabbed the other shipgirl by her shoulders, causing others to stare at her. "No! You do that, those sons of bitches that hurt little Dani and her friends win! Don't do that! Yeah, it's your way, but...!" Her eyes then teared. "But...!"

Hands fell on her shoulders. "It's okay, Ellie," Enterprise soothed. "That time won't come for a while yet. 'Sides, Sonia tore a strip off them shortly after she got back to duty." Here, she nodded towards Arizona, who was currently with a flock of destroyers from both sides of the Pacific, including Shimakaze and her four half-sisters from Korea. "We never recognized how different our worldviews are like. If we don't acknowledge that, we've learned nothing from the war."

"Wise words, Commander," Bartlet said as the small group of people who had come with him from Sasebo all nodded. "Now, why don't you introduce some of your fiancée's wonderful cooking to your sister here and get her topped off."

Enterprise laughed. "Aye-aye, sir!"

With that, she grabbed Yorktown's hand and pulled the other carrier towards one of the tables where Yamato and her sisters save Yonaga were relaxing. Akagi watched them go, then took a deep breath. "Well, I have topped up my tanks for a bit and need to get some fresh air. Yoiko-san, would you like to join me?" she then asked the taller and more muscular carrier nearby.

"It would be my pleasure, Anna-san."

Both moved to leave, then Akagi stop. "Oh, Josh-san."

Josh Lyman perked. "What is it, Anna?"

She gave him a disapproving stare. "'The god you pray to is too busy being indicted for tax fraud'?" she asked.

As Lyman gaped at her as he was instantly reminded of that verbal gaffe he made on television one day three years ago, Bartlet smirked. "I've already scolded him for that long ago, Anna," the president stated. "He will NOT do that again."

"Why do I sense there was another story to that?" Yonaga asked.

The former governor of New Hampshire blinked, then he chuckled. "There was. Remind me to tell you of that story, Captain."

"I will remember that, Mister President."

With that, both carriers walked out of the cafeteria. Watching them go, Lyman took a deep breath. "He deserves the Medal of Freedom more for that than that stupid tag race thing a year ago," he then muttered, making people gaze his way.

"Ataru?" Toby Ziegler asked.

"Yeah," the younger man breathed out. "Even if he had problems because of Miss Negako being in his head like that, that he wrote a letter like that three years ago telling us the truth of what we were bringing into this world...!"

Bartlet hummed. He would soon have to travel back to America. Much that he loved being with the brave, young troops who were fighting to keep humanity safe and showing how much the United States cared for Japan, he had his own responsibilities to concern himself with. Atop that, there was a growing issue back home which needed his direct attention. Especially with the most recent incident in Washington state concerning a certain yeoman-turned-ship's clerk whose love for a certain reborn fast battleship made her an "easy" target for fanatical magicals who were desperate to restore a draconian law which had been effectively gutted in 1942. As both he and his current secretary of magic knew, if that law first passed in 1790 was put back into effect, such would ultimately destroy American magical society as many like societies in Europe had teetered on the brink of destruction for decades due to rampant mugalophobia that made the leaders of such groups turn their backs on new blood which could keep their societies alive and vibrant even with the pending collapse of the Statute of Secrecy...

"We'll have to incorporate that into the press release concerning Yorktown's return, Toby," the president then advised, earning him a nod from both Ziegler and C.J. Cregg. "Something that doesn't draw the spotlight on Ataru and the letter he wrote. His family really never did that sort of thing back in the old days and given what happened in Tomobiki yesterday, some people might try to use it as impetus to cause another attack on innocent folks who don't deserve to be hurt like that."

"I'll get on it, sir," his communications director vowed...

* * *

 _ **Sasebo, the Richardson residence, that moment...**_

"It's almost done."

Hearing that from their new friend, both Miyake Harumi and Kim Ŭijin smiled. As both John Richardson and Mutsu enjoyed some snacks that Jintsū had created for them all, the two girls from Nakanotori-shima grasped the other girl's hand. Seeing that made the one-star from Virginia blink. "How bad was it on that island?" he then asked. "After you got out of that cave, I mean? I just can't imagine how you and your friends lived on that island, isolated from everyone..."

"We had each other," Harumi said as Jane Richardson gazed upon them from her kneeling position close to the stove. "Sure, we missed our parents and friends and all that, but we had each other. Once we could grow our own food, we were okay. There were books in every language you could imagine so we could teach ourselves things. About magical stuff and non-magical stuff." She then sighed. "Some of us wondered what was going on back in the rest of the world, but..."

"They 'erased' us totally, Chunjang-nim," the native of Nogŭn-ni said. As the elder Richardson tried not to wince on reminding himself what had happened at that particular village in the summer of 1950, Ŭijin shook her head. "Erased all the birth records and had people go there to erase the memories of Appa and Ŏmma and everyone else that knew me. They did the same thing to Harumi-chan and all the others they brought to that island, too. All the operational orders about that were kept in the commandant's office. There were copies in a safe in one of the few buildings the Marines and the Foresters didn't wreck when they came to rescue us. When we read that..." She sniffed back tears, instantly earning her a warm squeeze on her shoulder by Jintsū. "Well, we decided we would live on the island. We'd still be there, too, if it wasn't for the stupid umibōzu."

"You've given them some pretty bloody noses over the years, Ŭijin-a," Mutsu noted. She had loved it when the two girls had touched her stomach to sense the lives growing within her hull. "From the few times we've talked to allied Abyssals about that island, they told us about the 'mean girls' who always beat them up and chased them away." She shook her head. "We're just so sorry that we didn't really clue into what was going on until we realized that island was still out there..."

"You girls got off that island six years ago, right?" Richardson asked.

"Seven," Harumi corrected with a nod while Ŭijin looked over to see Jane move to pull out the wonderful cake she was baking for her new friends out of the oven. "It was so strange coming to Fukuoka. Back then, it was a lot smaller..."

The shipgirls present all laughed. "You can say that about any city in Japan, Harumi-chan," Jintsū said as Jane moved to get the frosting and all the other things on the cake before she would bring it over to the table.

"And the buildings weren't so tall!" Ŭijin added. "When I was brought here from Pusan back before the war started...!"

Laughter filled the kitchen. "Well, at least you had help settling in," Richardson noted. "Did any of the missionaries come to figure out what was really going on with you? If you were frozen in time like that..."

"We were a lot younger when we came," Harumi assured him. "To make a proper obscurial, you need someone very young."

Jaws dropped. "How can you joke about that?!" Jane asked.

"No sense in denying it, Jane-a," Ŭijin noted, shrugging.

"Cripes! They all deserve the POW Medal for that, Admiral!"

Richardson perked as a certain subgirl came in. "Agreed, Lieutenant Rimmer, but I doubt the President could get away with awarding that to a slew of non-Americans. Not without blowing things out into the open that don't deserve to be aired out," the admiral noted as Albacore moved to take her seat at the table before he fixed the subgirl with a knowing look. "Were you able to get hold of what I asked you to get without trying to make some poor supply officer's life hell?"

The Gato-class submarine laughed before she smiled as Jane move to start cutting the cake. Soon enough, everyone was served. Grace was then said by Ŭijin before everyone called out "Itadakimasu!" in Japanese before digging in. As people ate, presents were then produced by Albacore, revealing sets of pyjamas with the markings of their favourite baseball teams on them. While the two girls from Nakanotori-shima then confessed that they had got used to sleeping in the nude and together in all the years they had lived on the island and at the shelter in Fukuoka — which had earned them some concern from the missionaries that had cared for them until now — both Harumi and Ŭijin were grateful for the gifts.

Thinking about that, Richardson sighed.

He just hoped that some religious idiot didn't cause issues about this...!

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, that moment...**_

"All secure, Master Guns?"

"Aye, sir," MGySgt Thomas Beckett declared as he secured his wand in the combat holster that had served him from the first battles against the Greater East Asia Liberation Army in 1942 to today. He then nodded in appreciation at the set of alert wards he set up around the capital ship barracks to await the return of Yonaga and several others from their deployment to Yokosuka to see what was going on with another child of that thrice-damned island that had caused so much in the way of issues back during that war and in the current war. "I'll stay up for the captain and the others to make sure they're tucked in safe and sound for the night. Knowing those things out there won't like it if the 'angry one' teams up with any of those kids..."

Hearing that, Lieutenant Doug Papich chuckled. "I'll turn the watch over. Don't stay up too late, Master Guns. You need your sleep, too. And don't tank up on that stupid pepper-up potion you magicals love to use, alright?"

Beckett chuckled as he exchanged salutes with the young no-maj officer from Tallahassee who hadn't even blinked twice when he learned the truth of the experienced veteran of the magical wings of the Marine Corps and the United States Marshal Service. "Healers would tear a strip off me and feed my guts to a dragon if I did that at my age, sir. You get some sleep."

"You, too."

As Papich walked off, Beckett sighed as he took one final look around the area with both his Mark One eyeball and his long-trained mage-sight. Noting that there was nothing of a magical, mystical, metahuman or supernatural nature that he could perceive — he had been told about that incident concerning the admiral's daughter some months before involving some kuchisake-onna that had got all the way to the Richardson family's quarters near the base, nearly causing a massive gun fight when Arizona, Mutsu, Hiei and Jintsū overreacted — he nodded in satisfaction before shaking his head. Bad enough that normal folks worldwide were being forced to confront the existence of magic, but to force them ALSO to deal with all the other crap that was being stirred up courtesy of the Abyssals...! Suppressing that thought, the native of Chicago took a deep breath before he headed to the security room that monitored shipgirl quarters, located next to the walkway that led to the cafeteria.

He needed a good stiff cup of coffee...

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

Hidden in the shadows, a smiling teenage girl in the track suit of a certain Catholic girl's high school located down the coast from Sasebo could only nod in appreciation as the nice American magical naval infantryman headed off.

Unlike most others in her position, Hyūji Makoto had long understood all the truths of this strange war that she had become involved in by proxy due to what she had been effectively programmed to do by Doctor Murata Eiichi two years before. Humanity was under threat like it had never faced in all its many millennia of existence. Not even the fabled battles between the interdimensional monsters known in certain circles as the "Old Ones" and the meson-powered Pomeranian warlord known in many circles as the "Undying Lord" over twenty-five millennia before equalled the threat the demons of the Abyss presented now to mankind as a whole. And while it was good that something had finally been done to match the Abyssals...!

People had forgot at the beginning that the shipgirls had certain needs.

They had to be fulfilled.

And while Makoto liked it whenever she had spent time with those corrupted shipgirls led by Tosa who had come to the island before Arisugawa Yui and Hirato Yūko had taken everyone from Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School to safety...

She KNEW her purpose was to be there for a REAL shipgirl.

And who better than the Seventh Carrier herself.

"Yoiko-sama..."

Smiling, she slipped easily past the alert ward line that MGySgt Bennett had set up to protect the carrier dorms from intrusion; the massive levels of ebony mesonium in her blood had been enough to project a masking field around her to protect her from detection. Once she was at the back door, she looked up at the security camera that was there. Smiling again — the camera was a normal device, not augmented by any form of technomancy whatsoever — she walked through the opened door into the two-floor building; due to the late spring heat, the shipgirls often left doors open to allow fresh air to blow in and keep their bodies cool in these times to conserve on the need to turn air conditioning machines on and waste precious power.

Once inside, she slipped off her shoes and moved to scan the directory of rooms set aside for the people permanently based here. Noting that Yonaga had been given a suite for herself on the upper floor away from where Taihō was now residing with Hayashi Kanami, Makoto nodded as she quietly walked up the steps to the upper floor; she could hear the five Sekihō-class carriers on the main floor as they enjoyed a quiet party among themselves. No need to disturb them.

Reaching the upper floor, Makoto walked along the hallway to the one room that had a sign hanging on the door:

 **伊藤** **よいこ** **1** **等海佐  
** **Capt. ITŌ Yoiko  
** **代永  
** **YONAGA  
** **第六航空戦隊  
** **CARRIER DIVISION 6**

Gently opening the door to the spartan room, Makoto took a moment to allow her vision to convert to the near twilight of the evening. Nodding, she then stepped inside, closing the door behind her. Gazing around, Makoto then stepped up and assumed seiza position facing the bed, allowing her breathing to slow down as she entered a trance.

She needed to be fully ready when she was alone with Yoiko-sama...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Hochseeflotte** — High Seas Fleet; **Kriegsmarine** — War Navy; **Österreichisches Marineschiff** — Austrian Navy Ship; **Einsatzgruppe** — Literally "operational group"; **Okhótskoe Móre** — Okhótsk Sea; **Killim** — Korean way of reading the characters **吉林** (Jílín); **Yonyŏng** — Korean way of reading the characters **辽宁** (Liáoníng); **Namhug'yong-gang** — A phrase combining "nam" (south) with the Korean reading of **黑龙江** (Hēilóng-jiāng); **Tuman** — Korean name for the **Túmen River** , which forms the northeastern part of the Sino-Korean border close to Russia; **Amnok** — Korean name for the **Yālù River** which forms the northwestern part of the Sino-Korean border close to the Yellow Sea; **Yangban** — Literally "two classes", this was the name given to the learned scholarly ruling class of Korea during the years of the Chosŏn Dynasty; **Manse** — Literally "ten thousand years", the Korean version of "banzai"; **-ni** — village; **Umibōzu** — Literally "sea monk", this is a Japanese yōkai commonly known for upending ships in stormy seas; **Ch'ungch'ŏngbuk-to** — North Ch'ungch'ŏng Province; **-nari** — Classical Korean honorific used by commoners in the old days to address people of higher status, the rough equivalent of the English "Your Excellency"; **Taegam** — Literally "great office" and more commonly translated as "master", this was a rank title for high officials in the Chosŏn court; **-nim** — The Korean version of the Japanese "-sama" and meaning the same thing; **Pabo** — Idiot; **-ssi** — The polite Korean honorific, akin to the Japanese "-san"; **Kuch'ŏp-pansang** — A serving of nine side dishes of various types ( **panch'an** ) with a meal, usually with rice and kimch'i; **Nekul'túrnyje svin'í** — Uncultured pigs; **Málen'kije ángely** — Little angels; **Dait** **ō** **ry** **ō** — President (of a nation-state); **Chunjang** — Literally "flotilla admiral", the Korean rank title for a United States Navy lower rank rear-admiral; **Appa** — Daddy; **Ŏmma** — Mommy; **Kuchisake-onna** — Literally "slit-mouthed woman", this is a yōkai formed from the ghost of a woman who had been badly mutilated by her husband before dying.

Quick notes about Korean pronunciation: Five consonants (" **k** ", " **t** ", " **ch** ", " **p** " and " **r** ") always slur into different sounds (" **g** ", " **d** ", " **j** ", " **b** " and " **l** " respectively) depending on the position in the word or phrase, much less the positioning of vowels before and after the consonant in question. For example, "t" would slur into "d" in the middle of the phrase; hence, we get **Taegam-nim** and **Yonaga-daegamnim**. The only exception is when the first four letters noted above follow a like letter, as witness **Ch'ungch'ŏngbuk-to** ; the southern neighbour of that province is said **Ch'ungch'ŏngnam-do**. Also note that " **r** " turns into " **n** " when it follows a nasal consonant like " **n** ", " **m** " or " **ng** "; hence, you get **Nogŭn-ni** when it's written "Nogŭn-ri".

 **Toegye** was the pen name of Korean philosopher **Yi Hwang** (1501-70), one of the most prominent Korean Confucian scholars during the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392-1897). **Yulgok** was the pen name of Master Toegye's contemporary, **Yi I** (1536-84). Master Yulgok's mother was known by her pen name **Shim Saimdang** (1504-51); her real name is unknown. **Yi Sunshin** (1545-98) was Korea's most famous warrior, who defended the country from Japanese invasion in the last years of the Sixteenth Century.

The story of **Nakanotori-shima** ( **Ganges Island** ) and what happened there is covered in _Harry Potter and the Shipgirls_ ; start with Harry Leferts' snippet #52 at the SpaceBattles forum to read further. A big nod to Harry for his work on that story that inspired parts of this chapter. **Ono Haru** and **Rose Potter** are also from his story. The former is a **kitsune** who married a human, but lost him to the Abyssals; she serves as the shrine maiden for the new Shintō shrine at Yokosuka honouring the dead of the current war. The latter is a **tsukumogami** ("tool spirit") which became sentient out of an ancient tea set the Evans family had possessed for ages, eventually acquiring full sentience and human form just before Harry Potter went to Hogwarts.

Note that names given to the **Project V6** (AKA the "Shimakaze Kai" or "Super Shimakaze") class of destroyers are my invention; when the follow-on class to **THG** _ **Shimakaze**_ was first proposed, no names were selected before it was cancelled. I revived "wind" names from Great War-era destroyers which had been scrapped or regulated to secondary duties by the time of the Greater East Asia War, save for **Warship #747** ( **THG** _ **Taiyōkaze**_ ) and **Warship #748** ( **THG** _ **Hikaze**_ ); these names are my invention. When the shipgirls were summoned to Korea, they were named using the Korean readings of the kanji that went into their old Japanese names. The list is as follows (including Korean Navy hull classification numbers):

DD-914 **TKK** _ **Pongp'ung**_ (ex-THG _Minekaze_ , Warship #733)  
DD-921 **TKK** _ **T'aekp'ung**_ (ex-THG _Sawakaze_ , Warship #734)  
DD-924 **TKK** _ **Ch'ungp'ung**_ (ex-THG _Okikaze_ , Warship #735)  
DD-926 **TKK** _ **T'anp'ung**_ (ex-THG _Nadakaze_ , Warship #736)  
DD-927 **TKK** _ **Ship'ung**_ (ex-THG _Yakaze_ , Warship #737)  
DD-928 **TKK** _ **Up'ung**_ (ex-THG _Hakaze_ , Warship #738)  
DD-929 **TKK** _ **Sŏkp'ung**_ (ex-THG _Shiokaze_ , Warship #739)  
DD-930 **TKK** _ **Ch'up'ung**_ (ex-THG _Akikaze_ , Warship #740)  
DD-931 **TKK** _ **Sap'ung**_ (ex-THG _Yūkaze_ , Warship #741)  
DD-932 **TKK** _ **T'aedop'ung**_ (ex-THG _Tachikaze_ , Warship #742)  
DD-933 **TKK** _ **Pŏmp'ung**_ (ex-THG _Hokaze_ , Warship #743)  
DD-934 **TKK** _ **Yap'ung**_ (ex-THG _Nokaze_ , Warship #744)  
DD-935 **TKK** _ **P'ap'ung**_ (ex-THG _Namikaze_ , Warship #745)  
DD-936 **TKK** _ **Sop'ung**_ (ex-THG _Numakaze_ , Warship #746)  
DD-937 **TKK** _ **T'aeyangp'ung**_ (ex-THG _Taiyōkaze_ , Warship #747)  
DD-938 **TKK** _ **Ilp'ung**_ (ex-THG _Hikaze_ , Warship #748)

 **Kyŏngbok-kung** (literally "Palace of Bright Fortune") is the largest of Sŏul's five great palaces dating from the era of the Chosŏn Dynasty; it was from here that most of the monarchs of the kingdom ruled the country. Yonaga refers to it in her speech to the militarists since the working home of the President of the Republic of Korea, **Ch'ŏng'wadae** (literally "blue tile pavilion" and normally translated as "Blue House"), is located just north of the palace grounds.

Patronymics used in this part for non-Japanese:

 **Kiití Rjúsukovich** — Kiichi, son of Ryūsuke  
 **Tsukíko Makotóvna** — Tsukiko, daughter of Makoto

 **Wokyū** is a character originally from a very popular dōjinshi artist from Japan, who draws under the pen name **Hisahiko** ; she appeared in collections of his work under the umbrella title _Haruna Weather_. She is a Wo-class aircraft carrier who can't speak any normal language even if shipgirls do understand her; every time she does speak, she seems to just recite her name. Her connection to the elder **USS** _ **Yorktown**_ ( **Eleanor Livingston** ) is my creation, though done in acknowledgement of Hisahiko connecting her to the Grey Ghost. However, since **USS** _ **Enterprise**_ ( **Yvonne Swanson** ) was already established as a character here and in the stories this one is based on, drawing the connection with her elder sister made sense to me.

Shipgirls mentioned here:

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Mikasa** — Tōgō Mihoko  
 **THG Kiyoshimo** — Kumasaka Kiyomi

 _ **KOREA  
**_ **TKK Pongp'ung** (ex-THG Minekaze) — Sŭng Mijin (Toyama Minako)  
 **TKK T'aekp'ung** (ex-THG Sawakaze) — Sŭng Sŏnghan (Toyama Sawako)  
 **TKK Ch'ungp'ung** (ex-THG Okikaze) — Sŭng Nayŏn (Toyama Okiku)  
 **TKK T'anp'ung** (ex-THG Nadakaze) — Sŭng Naŭn (Toyama Natsumi)

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Yorktown (1937)** — Anna Eleanor "Ellie" Livingston


	13. The Blessings of the Seventh Carrier

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District repair section, Tuesday 23 May, nightfall...**_

"You did all THIS to her?!"

Vestal was trying not to gape in disbelief at the middle-aged man seated nearby; the collier-turned-repair auxiliary had been portkeyed from Seattle to Yokosuka as soon as members of the Seventh Marine Division learned what happened to Arizona.

The man responsible was a lot older than he looked thanks to the magic in his genes, which had been with him since long before he graduated from the Kŭmgangsan Academy of Magic a decade before the start of the Wars of Liberation. "Ne, Young-jungnyŏng," the former deputy commander of the First Brigade of the Greater East Asia Liberation Army said with a delighted smile before he gazed fondly on one of his favourite customers; just because he had been asked to research ways of upgrading the second of the Pennsylvania-class super-dreadnoughts didn't mean that Ch'oe Sŏwŏn didn't see her as nothing less than a human being, though one with metahuman capabilities. "While my beliefs tend to move on a different path than our honourable hosts, I understand the concept of karma." He nodded politely to both Akashi and Yūbari on saying that, making both the repair ship and the experimental light cruiser blush at that compliment. "Owings-daewi's karma was damaged because of what befell her that dark day. Because she was haunted so much by her sense of failure towards her crew — never mind her sensing it whenever survivors of her crew had passed on — there was no real hope of pushing her to the point where she could match her sister." He gazed on Pennsylvania. "She needed help. My people were happy to help. Keeping her trapped in harbour while her friends and family are out there fighting and potentially dying..."

Hearing that, Arizona blinked before she then bowed her head. "Kamsahamnida, Ch'oe-sŏnsaengnim," she formally thanked him in Korean before switching back to English. "It'll be the devil's own time to get me worked up properly. My crew need to train hard to master the new equipment, especially all the new weapons and aircraft. Thank you, at least, for not giving me the strike capabilities Captain Saint Germain and her sisters all possess. I detest the use of such things..."

She then stiffened something seemed to surge into her, making her face turn pale as her gaze turned inward for a moment. She then began to shudder as her eyes teared, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. "What is it, Sonia?" Vestal asked.

"Another of her crew just answered the Last Post," Sundown quietly declared.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Oh, Sonia...!" San Francisco hissed as her own eyes teared while Prinz Eugen and several of the others in the repair bay all turned their heads away to not deluge the suffering standard battleship with a chorus of sympathetic looks.

"It's alright, Michiko..."

Eyes gazed on Arizona. "What do you mean, Sonia?" Pennsylvania asked as she squeezed her sister's shoulders.

"He's...one of the ones whose name was recorded on the memorial over my hull."

People blinked as they took that in, then they gazed anew on the second of the Sunbeam-class dreadnoughts standing there, a wan smile on her face. "He was one of the ones my crew got out of your engine room," Sundown said with a tender voice. She then relaxed herself as her eyes began to glow, a bright magical aura cloaking her, which made the others all gape at such a demonstration of the power of the second-oldest magical battleship of the Dominion of Canada. " **Chief?!** " she called out, her voice ringing with a divine echo, that making the others tense. " **It's time to rejoin your shipmates, sailor!** "

The lights overhead vanished as gloom settled over the scene...

...which was soon replaced by the ghostly images of United States Ship _Arizona_ as she was just "modified" hours before, she now at station-keeping alongside Her Majesty's Canadian Ship _Sundown_ , the latter appearing as she did after her last major refit in the 1980s. A gangway now connected the ship's weather decks near their forward turrets. The ghostly images of American and Canadian sailors standing close to the landings for the gangway appeared, dressed in modern uniforms for the United States Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy. Much to the delight of the American shipgirls present, there were members of Arizona's Marine detachment present in their dress blue parade uniforms...which matched the group of Sundown's Foresters in their dress greens, coonskin caps perched perfectly on their heads. Walking out through a hatchway on the Canadian ship was a smiling middle-aged man in the dress uniform of a United States Navy senior chief engineman, his service stripes gold to show good conduct. Stopping before the smiling captain awaiting him by the gangway, the chief saluted.

[Permission to disembark, sir?]

[Permission granted, Chief. Show them how it's done.]

[Aye-aye, sir.] He then faced the gangway and the smiling images of his old crew. [Permission to come aboard, Captain?] he then called out as he saluted the ghost of the last captain of the second Pennsylvania-class battleship.

[Welcome back home, Chief,] the American captain called out as he saluted back.

[Pipe the chief off, Pipe Major!] the Canadian captain then ordered.

[Yes, sir!] a Forester sergeant in dress uniform with kilt, sporran and kilt hose over spit-shone brogues, having the four upwards-pointing chevrons of a band pipe major on his sleeves, called out as he shifted the chanter of his bagpipes to his lips.

Everyone watching this braced to attention as a beautiful medley escaped that ghostly instrument while the chief got on the gangplank. He turned, faced aft and saluted the White Ensign that could be seen in the near distance. Turning around, he walked over to his old ship, stopping to salute the Stars and Stripes before he saluted his captain. [Reporting for duty, Captain,] he said with a grin as he looked at the human woman in the repaired uniform that represented his ship.

[Welcome back, Chief. Thanks again, Captain Saint Germain.]

[It was always our pleasure, Captain Van Valkenburgh.]

At that moment, the beautiful medley played by the piper reached its crescendo...

...and then everything was back to normal again, with Sundown no longer glowing.

People gaped for a second as their minds absorbed what they had just witnessed, then Arizona shuddered before she gazed teary-eyed at the woman who personified one of the two ships that had done so much that dark autumn day. "I...can never, ever, thank you enough, Darlene...!" she hissed out as she tried not to lunge over and embrace Sundown with all the power her new gas turbine engines could give her. "Not you, not Stacey...!" She smiled as Pennsylvania warmly embraced her from behind, she being joined by a teary-eyed Hiei, Mutsu and Jintsū as Jane Richardson ran over to leap into the battleship's arms, her eyes awash in tears at what she had just witnessed. Standing off to one side, both Rear Admirals Gotō Kiichi and John Richardson remained respectfully silent after watching this unbelievable event, though Kongō was currently hugging her beloved admiral's arm, her eyes awash in sympathetic tears. "Your whole crew...!" She shook her head. "Why...?"

"Why did they choose death to make me what I am now?" Sundown asked.

"Yeah..." New Jersey breathed out.

A tired sigh escaped the century-old battleship. "'They're just no-majs. Why should we care about no-majs?'" she sneered, her western Canadian English accent taking up the strong hint of a Southern American drawl. "That was the president pro tempore of the Magical Congress just before my sister and I deployed off O'ahu a half-week before the Kidō Butai arrived. Typical staleblood idiot who was petrified to death of normal people...and deep down, thought them no different than animals, just like his cousins in Europe always do even to this day. Even during the times they were being ripped apart by Gellert Grindelwald and his army, having the proof that 'mudbloods' could be just as deadly as anyone descent from the times of Merlin shoved right in their faces as their lives were snuffed from them and their societies shattered from within and without."

She shook her head as a wry smile crossed her face. "The Übermenschen put paid to that notion a few months later when they slaughtered that lot, decapitating the leadership of the Department of Magic. It gave President Roosevelt the chance to move in with Magical Executive Order 9010, which removed that fiction of a 'magical president' and stopped the kidnapping of normal-born people, separating them from families like they did to Patty's namesake. Not to mention Regina Mitchell and _**hundreds**_ others like her over the years." As gasps filled the repair bay, Sundown turned to leave. "Sure, there are loads of magicals in America who are doing their best to help protect everyone. Not all of them are in the Seventh Marine Division or the Seventh Cavalry Division." She shrugged. "My crew? Many of their sons and daughters wore the Red Serge and worked in 'W' Division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, our law enforcement group. They were nearly bled dry by the Abyssals by the time Papa's great-grandson used the Immortal Master's notes to bring Sackville back at Cornwallis. Too many of my crew had to bury relatives who will get Crosses of Valour and be made Companions of the Order of Merlin for charging forward valiantly..." She closed her eyes, tears flowing down her cheeks to pool at her jaw. "And being _**butchered**_ valiantly."

Grim nods twitched people's heads. "Your navy's doing a hell of a lot to seek vengeance for that, Sensei," Hiei said with a touch of savagery in her voice. "I know Staff Sergeant Larsden has come back to Earth." As more gasps filled the repair bay, the second of the Kongō-class shrugged. "Abyssals are being killed by meson-tipped .50 calibre rounds fired from someone on the shore of Vancouver Island, usually at three kilometres' range. The rumours about the 'invisible hunter' who appears on either the Pacific or Atlantic coasts of Canada to blow off someone's head got to Wanko-san and her friends a year ago."

"At least address the commissioner by his proper nickname, Sarah."

Eyes locked on Sundown, then Jersey smirked. " _ **The Hunter of the Mi'kmaq**_."

"Why would he do that, Captain?"

Sundown looked at Jane Richardson, who was trying not to break down and cry as she snuggled in Arizona's arms. "After the war, Master Martin was assigned to 'Depot' Division in Regina as an instructor for new cadets moving to refill the ranks. He served there until he put himself on the supplementary list for the Force in 1956. A lot of 'W' Division Forcemen were his students while he was there. Too many have died over the last decade. If it was for a logical reason, he might understand. But there was no reason. Which, to him, makes hunting Abyssals no different than what hunting Übermenschen or fighters of the Black Dragon Society was during the war." She shook her head. "It's killing _**diseased animals**_ in the end."

"One shot, one kill," Jersey whispered. "I know Admiral Thompkins is your squadron boss and General Raeburn's in charge of CANSOFCOM. Where's General Dover?" She shrugged as Sundown gazed at her. "I assume she's a general, too."

"Deputy commander of Eurocorps, in charge of all specialized warfare forces on the Continent," the Canadian battleship answered. "Fortunately for the sanity of a lot of people in Europe, the hunting's good for Mistress Jessica whenever that thing inside her needs to feast on an evil soul to keep her sane." She winked at the second of the Iowa-class before she moved to step out of the repair bay. "Who do you think wiped out the Strait Princess six months ago off Gibraltar?"

Jaws dropped. Bowing her head, Sundown then moved to step outside.

"Why _The Gael_ , Darlene-sensei?"

That was Hiei, who was giving Sundown a curious look. "There's too much gloom now, Sarah," the latter said with a wink. "Life has ended. Life goes on. Don't dwell on the darkness. You know where that path leads you all."

People nodded in understanding as she walked out...

* * *

 _ **Mori Ice Cream Parlour (Outside the base gates), that moment...**_

"That was so beautiful..."

Yonaga nodded. She and all those currently seated with her in this quaint ice cream parlour had sensed what happened to Arizona. "Indeed, Ryōko-san. Even if I would have been forced to remain silent concerning the Ryūseizen before Tennō intervened like he did, I am pleased to see Sonia-san is starting to put her past to rest." She shook her head before sipping the ice coffee her host had prepared for the seventh carrier. "The sooner that statute is gone, the better for all."

Hearing that, Sasaki Miyuki and Ono Haru exchanged looks, then they sipped their own drinks. The two disguised yōkai had encountered Yonaga when she had been out on a walk around the grounds with Akagi, inviting her over to the shoppe owned by Miyuki and her fiancé Mori Daisuke for a late-night snack and conversation. While at first disturbed on learning that so many yōkai were living close to her fleet mates across the country, the fifth of the Yamato-class had been reassured by her sisters and friends that none had brought any shipgirl or any of the human staff to harm...and had admirably helped in the protection of both shipgirls and normal humans at all the naval districts over the last half-decade, especially from local spiritual threats. "Part of me agrees," the snow-spirit from Hokkaidō mused as she gazed on the large carrier, trying to not allow the mystical aura that poured off Yonaga like Niagara Falls to blind her. "It would be nice to stop bothering friends in Mahora to get memory-modification experts down to hide what I am from teraphobes who would raise a blizzard because I wasn't 'pure'." As Yonaga snorted, Miyuki sighed. "Still, the majority don't care. Then again, given the ice cream I sell..."

Haru's barking laugh echoed through the room. "Yes, it is wise to win hearts through stomachs!" the kitsune noted.

Chuckles escaped the others seated at the table. "One question I have is this," Jun'yō then mused as she sipped her favourite sake. "What in the name of the Kami have you run into beyond dealing with Abyssals princesses, Yoiko-san?"

Yonaga's eyebrow arched. "Is it that hurtful, Junko-san?"

"Not hurtful, good lady, but seeing it is quite distracting," Kiyotaka Akiharu noted as he sipped his own drink. A tengu — like the others now meeting with the seventh carrier of Operation Z and two of her fleet mates, he was now in human disguise — he was a shopkeeper who sold all sorts of things to both shipgirls and humans alike from a store near the front gate of the Sasebo base. "Much that your karma has been enhanced quite profoundly thanks to the number of the enemy you've destroyed over the last six months after the young Ryūseizen transformed you like she did, there are other things as well. Almost at the level of you fighting some very strong kami in your own right. Dark kami as well. What were you facing?"

"Quite a sampling of dark kami from the northern reaches of both Eurasia and North America, Akiharu-sensei," Yonaga reported. "One of the first things I did at Patricia-san's suggestion after my transformation was to undergo the standard ritual an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy Magical Service faces before being given command responsibilities aboard a battleship." She smirked. "By myself, I had to hunt and kill a yōma somewhere in the northern territories. I lucked out."

Eyes locked on her. "What type of yōma, Yoiko-san?" Ryūjō asked.

"A wendigo."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"By all the gods...!" Akiharu hissed out as the other yōkai winced on hearing that. "Filthy creatures! How in the name of the Fates do THEY still exist in this day and age?! With all the people living in towns...!"

"There are still adventure sportsmen who wish to test their mettle against the power of the Great Beasts, Sensei," Yonaga advised, making the yōkai all pale on hearing of THOSE ancient elemental kami whose existence and influence within the boundaries of Canada made that nation the equal of Australia when it comes to threats from magical and mythological sources that seemed to defy even the cultured sensibilities of more "civilized" magicals from Europe or America. "Some fools set out from Tłegǫ́hłı̨ to travel cross-country to visit friends in Délįne on the shore of Sahtú Lake." As the others nodded — fortunately, the restaurant came with translation spells that could interpret the Dene K'e terms that the carrier was using — Yonaga sipped her coffee. "They miscalculated the amount of supplies they had to bring and were caught in a storm. One was driven mad by hunger — and a nearby vein of ebony mesonium — to consume the flesh of a friend, thus being cursed. I caught the thing as it was about to attack a group of children who were camping near the shores of Sahtú and slew the beast."

The others nodded. "Some American wand-magicals came by the base when Hornet and her group were here some months ago," Haru noted. "Not as radical as fools like those who've attacked Washington's fiancée recently, but they are passionate towards the maintenance of the Statute of Secrecy. Fortunately, Takamachi-kun was able to prevent them from causing an incident which would have had to be brought before the ICW. I overheard one of them complain about some great creature that appeared in Nunavut and seemed to threaten the people living in Qamani'tuaq. The Foresters responded, but did nothing to it save bring the population of the whole village into the Fidelius the Canadians maintain concerning the secret of magic. The Magical Congress tried to lodge a complaint with the ICW, but Secretary Quahog quashed it. Did the Ryūseizen know?"

"Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq," Yonaga evenly announced.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

Eyes locked on her as all the yōkai present turned white as sheets. "Oh, Fates have MERCY...!" Miyuki hissed.

"What is that?" a confused Jun'yō asked.

"The greatest of the Great Beasts. An ancient nature god that has influenced events in the north of Canada and Russia since before the time humans began living there, Junko-san," Haru breathed out as she fought down the understandable urge to flee and hide where such a creature wouldn't find her. "That thing is more commonly known by the Russian translation: _**Túndra**_!" As both Jun'yō and Ryūjō paled on hearing that term — as both carriers were spiritual onmyōji thanks to several of their crew having trained in the ancient mystical arts, they had long learned the common names of many of the ancient primal kami that existed on the planet — the kitsune shook her head. "According to legends said to predate even the Undying Lord's time, that thing was so strong that not even the Old Ones could challenge it, especially during the times the glaciers shifted south to cover most of Eurasia and North America. Rumour has it Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq and others like it were Taserich's main allies in dealing with the Old Ones during the Great Expulsion twenty-five millennia ago. Since that creature rose from the life force of the Earth, the Praetorian Guardian had no reason to take interest." She focused on Yonaga. "What was it doing?"

"Removing a plague from his territory, Haru-sensei," the large carrier answered. "It turns out that Abyssals who wanted to take advantage of Hudson Bay to attack inland Canadian cities like Winnipeg and Toronto tried to establish a base to launch strikes. They made their way up the Akilinik River to set up their base near Qamani'tuaq." Here, Yonaga smirked. "They made the mistake of disturbing a shrine children had made in homage to Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq and his brother Great Beasts in hopes of earning them protection from the yōma. While he doesn't care for humans unless they're touched by mesonium like Rittmeister von Taserich, President Lincoln and General Raeburn and her friends, Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq was impressed by their prayers, then acted when the yōma moved to wipe out the village and slaughter the children. By the time 'Y' Commando got there, it was dealt with. Fortunately, the Canadians have their Specialized Warfare Act which covers all metahuman incidents. Magic is seen as such. After the Fidelius was extended to all the witnesses, the incident was seen as closed."

"Were you there, Yoiko-san?" Ryūjō asked.

"I was on the other side of the Arctic dealing with the New Lands Princess at the time, Ryōko-san. Jane-san was with me on that mission," the larger carrier said. "Patricia-san was there, however. It was the first incident she recalls where the enemy made use of ebony mesonium warheads in those Fi-103 missiles upon Canadian sovereign territory. She was able to stop it with her Phalanx systems, then she destroyed the carrier that launched those accursed things with her main cannon."

That made the others wince. "Were they trying to curry favour from that monster?" Miyuki wondered as a scowl crossed her face while she moved to hug herself. As a yuki-onna, she had the same type of affiliation to the cold as such an ancient god as the Primal One of the North. She knew, however, that thanks to its age and power, a being like Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq never concerned itself with the affairs of mortals, much less "minor" beings such as the yōkai that lived in Japan, not to mention their equivalents elsewhere. "If only beings touched by mesonium earn any sort of respect from that creature...?"

"They might have been, Miyuki-sensei," Yonaga stated. "The enemy knows their power to operate on land is severely limited. And Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq is not the only primal kami that has taken active interest in the sea yōma. Witness that incident in the South Pacific four years ago when the Lord of the Deep himself rose from the waters to destroy a princess. I believe, Harumi-san, you were there when he disposed of that particular beast?" She looked over her shoulder.

The others looked before they winced on seeing a shuddering Haruna being comforted now by both Yorktown and Rose Potter, with Enterprise and Yamato gazing upon the last of the Kongō-class, concern etched on their faces. "Harumi remembers what Yoiko-san is speaking about," Haruna hissed out. Even though she always spoke of herself in third person, she only used her personal name whenever she was along with friends or loved ones. "Even now, Harumi hates thinking of what that awful thing did! Even if she was the enemy, she was EATEN ALIVE by the Lord of the Deep! As if she was just a _**morning snack**_...!"

"So some of the most powerful beings on Earth are now getting up in arms about the Abyssals," Enterprise noted as she crossed her arms. "Good news and bad news. Good news is that they don't like it when Abyssals move to upset the natural order of things. Bad news is that they're so powerful that they can do all sorts of damage to bystanders, even unintentionally." She shook her head before sipping her tea. "We think we know so much, yet we know next to nothing at all..."

"You were touched by that creature, weren't you, Captain?"

Heads turned to allow people to gaze upon the American secretary of magic, who was seated at a nearby table along with Albus Dumbledore, Yomigawa Tsukiko, Svetlána Múrometsa and Konoe Konoemon. "By proxy, Colonel," Yonaga answered. "After I destroyed the New Lands Princess, I asked Jane-san to take me to Qamani'tuaq so I could pay my own respects to Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq for what he did. When I was there, he came to me. He was thankful to me for saving the gamájun who inhabit the lands in Siberia he also holds sway over, then blessed all the daishō I carry with me so that I can continue my 'good work' in dealing with the yōma." On saying that, she reached to her side to partially draw her admiral's sword.

Everyone focused their mage-sight on the beautiful blade, then Haru whistled with admiration. "No wonder you're so successful in dealing with the Abyssals," she stated. "And you have the sword sets for all your crew inside your hull?"

"Just as deadly as that young girl was when she dealt with those militarists earlier today," Akiharu mused as a churlish smile crossed his face, his black eyes flaring with delight. Even if tengu weren't as evil as some of the old legends claimed, they were still beings born of harsh Nature. That something as primal as the being created from the Arctic tundra itself had risen again to deal with the invading yōma from the deep oceans didn't really surprise the shopkeeper.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I suspect, Samuel, hearing that testimony..."

"Personally, I long accepted the Sergeant Major's statement on what happened up there, Albus," Samuel Quahog breathed out, a wry smile crossing his face. That rank title he used was in reference to his counterpart in Québec City, Professor Edward Stewart (Warrant Officer Class I, "S" Commando, Royal Canadian Foresters [retired]) of Edmonton, the current Minister of Magical Affairs of the Dominion of Canada. Back during the War of Liberation, then-Staff Sergeant Edward Stewart had been the personal combat teacher for members of the just-formed 72nd Marine Regiment, including then-Second Lieutenant Samuel Quahog. "But trying to get some of the people in the Magical Congress to agree with me..."

"Samuíl Avraámovich, do we need to resurrect the Übermenschen to finally drive it home to those kulakí?" Múrometsa asked.

He shrugged. "Sometimes, I have to wonder, Marshal."

"Don't let it weigh you down, Colonel Quahog," a strange voice called out from a nearby table, which made people gaze in that direction to find no one there. The speaker's voice was flavoured by a classical American Midwest twang which hadn't been heard in a hundred years. "My apologies for deliberately masking myself, my friends, but when Jed told me of what he's heard concerning how certain groups were badly reacting to what was going on around the world, especially here..."

Yonaga smiled. "I am sure even the dark yōma who took your mother away from you are not THAT stupid, Mister President."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Be assured, Captain Itō, the Colligatio Nosferatu are staying out of this," that voice declared as the speaker's meson-powered cloaking screen came down, revealing a rugged man appearing to be about thirty or so, with severe yet homely features on his face, his dark hair cut conservatively, hazel eyes peeking out of his face which echoed with a tsunami of grief even if they also sparkled with unyielding power and a determination to see all done right for those he could help.

"That is good," Yonaga stated as some of the yōkai present — not to mention Dumbledore and Múrometsa — all gaped in awe at the presence of this nigh-ageless frontier lawyer and now part-time vampire hunter. "I care not to be the one who swings the blade to decapitate your honoured teacher should his hunger for blood ever get the better of him. Given the few times I've encountered vampires over the last six months, I was quite impressed by all the tales about that man."

"Who are you?"

Eyes locked on a confused Haruna, then Enterprise smirked. " _ **Abraham Lincoln**_."

"Known more commonly in mystical circles as the _**Rail-Splitter**_ , Harumi-san," Haru added as she gave the nigh-immortal sixteenth president of the United States a polite nod of the head. "We're honoured by your presence, sir."

"I pray it doesn't lead to some disaster sometime in the future," Dumbledore noted. "Someone of _**your**_ power, sir..."

Lincoln chuckled as he brought out his favourite weapon from his stuff-space pocket, causing Yonaga's fellow shipgirls to gape at the sight of a _**woodsman's axe**_ with the blade coated in silver and ruby mesonium. "Be assured, Professor Dumbledore, I am more than prepared in case someone wishes to push the issue. As are the Slayers, I'm pleased to note."

Others nodded. "Just wait," Akiharu mused. "When we finally learn the truth about the Abyssals, it might turn out that the so-called 'powers that be' young Summers-sensei and her friends have dealt with in the past were the ones who created them."

"From what Buffy told me, Mister Kiyotaka, the Powers have stayed out of this as well," Lincoln stated as Miyuki got up to prepare some tea for the visitor from America. "They're afraid that if they do intervene directly in this, those Old Ones who still reside on the planet will be forced to respond. Doing that is more than a guarantee that Vladímir Taychéshko will step in."

"That might actually be a good thing, Sensei," Yamato mused...

* * *

 _ **On Hakuzaki-chō, an hour later...**_

"Willkommen zurück, meine Freunde."

Hearing that polite greeting from her former fleet mate, Yū could only grin as she stepped out of the water, her rigging dispersing from her body. Nodding her thanks as a smiling Maritime Self-Defence Force boatswain handed her a towel, the Type IXC submarine which had been designated U-511 before she came under Japanese ownership and was re-designated Ro-500 wiped herself down. "It's good to be back home, Rinnie," Yū said in her charmingly-accented Japanese as she flashed Prinz Eugen a reassuring look. "So what's been happening since I went out on patrol?" she then asked as she took a moment to look around. She was quick to notice all the Canadian soldiers on the island. "Who are they?"

"Königliches Regiment des Kanadischen Försters," the heavy cruiser answered in her native tongue before she switched back to her own accented Japanese. "Their magical militia and wartime army. The service our Magische Reichsarmee modelled themselves after before the war." As the submarine nodded in understanding — as she had nimmagier who had served as part of her crew, Yū had been well-briefed on magical societies even before people found out the truth of Nagato's adopted son — Eugen added, "They're here to help in protecting the country. They're also here to help protect something that's earned Frau Kapitän Itō's attention. You and the other subgirls need to stay clear of where the old base gymnasium was."

Yū blinked as she concentrated, then she hummed. "Fidelius?"

"Ja. It's..." Here, Eugen sighed. "Bad."

Hearing that made the subgirl nod in understanding...

* * *

 _ **Inside the old gymnasium...**_

Kagurazaka Aoi perked.

A smile then crossed the tanned woman's face as she sat up from her bed, her dark eyes focusing in the exact direction where a certain subgirl had just come ashore after what had clearly been a long patrol. Shuddering as the cute blonde moeblob from Hamburg finished drying herself before handing back the towel to the nice boatswain, the physical education teacher of Saint Maria Christos Girl's School could only nod in delight as she rose from her bed, then moved to undress.

While she knew how much Arisugawa Yui and Hirato Yūko had gone out of their way to protect all their peers and teachers from the Abyssals by moving everyone to Nerima when chance finally presented itself a year ago, Aoi understood deeply what her real purpose in life was at this time. And while the many times she had sex with the many nice boys who came by the school over the year after Doctor Murata Eiichi woke her to the truth of life had been always delightful — the ebony mesonium in her blood had pretty much shielded her from nasty stuff like venereal diseases and the like, plus gave her a protection against unwanted pregnancies that no modern medical contrivance could equal — the tomboyish twenty-something native of Kitakyūshū knew her real duty now was to be the personal lover of one of the brave shipgirls who gladly risked life and limb to go out on cold, unforgiving seas to drive back the dark kami who threatened all of humanity.

Now she would have her chance.

And with such a cute subgirl as the U-boat who had been given the human name "Yū Frieda Steinhoff" by Moroboshi Ataru...!

Oh, yes. All of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High knew who had wrote the Letter.

God truly had blessed that boy in that regard.

And to believe that the people of Tomobiki STILL saw him as just an idiot...!

Shaking her head to chase away those frivolous thoughts, the dark-haired woman moved to slip on her track uniform. Glancing about as she used the neat psionic powers gifted to her by the crystals in her blood stream to sense out where her magical caregivers were, Aoi could only nod. She certainly didn't hate the nice Canadians for doing what they thought was right and proper. Ebony mesonium poisoning WAS a serious thing, but Doctor Murata had long devised a way to keep it relatively under control. Yes, inhibitions that had ruled her life for years were gone now, but they didn't make sense in a war situation like this. The shipgirls were sacrificing so much to save them all. People had to support that.

If being a living sex toy for one of those brave girls was a way to serve...

So be it.

Concentrating, Aoi allowed a cloaking field to form around her. Smiling, she then walked calmly out of the door of the cubicle that had been set aside for her by the healers of "W" Commando and the Kantō Magical Association, then made her way towards one of the open doors that led into this old gymnasium; no doubt, the base staff had elected to not make use of air conditioners to keep power consumption down, energy rationing being what it was even these days. Once she was out the door and clear of anyone who might want to stop her, the teacher then focused anew on the object of her current task.

There...!

Smiling, she walked off towards the small barracks that served as quarters for the subgirls who were based here, she now about twenty metres away from Yū; Aoi wouldn't think of calling this sweet girl by either her old German hull number or her later Japanese hull number. Trying not to be hypnotized by that beautiful teenage body clothed only in that form-fitting swimsuit she donned these days, the native of Kitakyūshū relaxed herself even if she kept the cloaking field around her.

There was no sense in shocking the poor girl...

* * *

 _ **The subgirl barracks on the west side of Hakuzaki-chō...**_

"Oh! Yū-chan! You just got back?!"

"Ja!" Yū called out as Gōya walked out of the main doors of the small two-floor barrack house the subgirls used as their normal quarters even if they had a nice underground shelter nearby to serve as their "secret base" when needed. "So what's going on here, Momoko?!" she then waved around. "Why are the Canadians sending their magical militia to the Naval District?!"

"Don't know!" the B3 type cruiser submarine responsible for the sinking of USS _Indianapolis_ near the end of the war — too late to stop the transport of the Little Boy bomb to Tinian for use on Hiroshima — said with a shrug. "Teitoku knows what's going down, but he hasn't briefed us yet. There was some whacked incident earlier where one of the Ryūseizen came by. She discovered that Wokyū-chan was none other than Yvonne-san's missing sister, then turned her back!"

Yū gasped. "Eh?! _**Yorktown?!**_ Does Tomomi know?!"

The other subgirl who had once been numbered I-58 shook her head. "She's still scouting the Kuríl'skie Islands to see if there's a new installation princess out there somewhere. The next signal's due from her at midnight. What about you?"

The blonde German-born subgirl sighed. "Found another hidden island out close to Okinotori-shima," she said. "Magical notice-me-not charms and the whole lot, but it was scoured over by the Abyssals. Looked like it was occupied by the Americans before the war. It was hard to tell." She then frowned. "If the magical side of this part of the Second World War was so civil, why would the American magicals want to place something in what was clearly Japanese territory?"

Gōya mentally drew up a map of the area to see what was close to that atoll. "Well, it's roughly on the great circle route from Hawai'i to the Philippines. America controlled that country before the war even if they never did what the Europeans did to places like Indochina and elsewhere." Both subgirls frowned at that; they had long been briefed on the real reason Yomigawa Tsukiko and her allies had gone to war against the European magical powers in 1939. "It was probably a place for people with international portkeys to stop and rest before moving on. Or some sort of observation post for that international alliance of theirs to make sure that treaty of theirs didn't get broken. The distances are pretty great even for magicals to cover."

"Could we ask one of the Drachentöter about that?"

That made the native-born subgirl hum. "Let's ask. Hey, Sergeant!"

Yū looked over, then she smiled as a motherly middle-aged woman in CADPATs came over. "What seems to be the problem, Hashimoto-taii?" Sergeant Joan Harkaway of Little Salmon asked as she exchanged salutes with Gōya before she focused on the German-born subgirl. "Oh, Stabskapitänleutnant Steinhoff! I didn't see you there, ma'am!" After exchanging salutes with a now-blushing Yū — who was NOT used to being addressed so formally like that — Harkaway asked, "What is it?"

"You guys know about some hidden magical island near Okinotori-shima?" Gōya asked.

That made the experienced Forester who served in the headquarters company of her commando blink before she hummed. "Must be Parece Vela," she mused as she reached into her jacket's lower pocket to draw out a magically-charmed iPad.

Yū blinked. "Isn't that the Spanish name for the reef, Frau Oberfeldwebel?"

The elderly hit-witch blushed at the use of the higher German Army equivalent rank title to her own rank level by the pretty little U-boat. "Yes, ma'am. It was also applied to a volcanic islet to the northeast of the atoll that all the normals know about. The island was first used by the Spanish to help anchor their 'loyalty stone' network over the Philippines to ensure no native could try to get away from the loyalty field and rebel against the Royal Ministry of Magic." As both subgirls scowled on hearing that, Harkaway smiled. "It was turned over to the Americans after that silly little war in 1898 and the loyalty field was turned off at the order of Queen Maria Christina when control over the Philippines was transferred to Washington and Manhattan. Thank Merlin that the idiot stalebloods in the Magical Congress never got it into their heads to use that type of field over the poor people there. They didn't need to suffer more than they already did." Tapping controls on her iPad to draw up historical files, she typed in a request in the search engine, then waited for the information to come up. "Used as a rest stop for international portkeys until the War of Liberation. Was captured by the Fifth Brigade in 1942. When the chief of the Department of Magic's Philippines office was brought over at Marshal Yomigawa's request to see the remnants of the ward stone there in late 1943, it was the first move to bring peace between the two sides in that war before it really got ugly."

"What happened after the war?" Gōya wondered.

"Was left in control of the reformed Auror Bureau — all of them being Seventh MARDIV vets, by the way — after peace was made until 1968, when the Kantō Magical Association took it over as a monitoring station. No need to use it as a portkey way stop. It went fully automated when long-range technomagical scanner systems were introduced into the Eight Commanderies in the 1980s, so no one would be there." The native of Little Salmon then gazed on Yū. "Did you just come back from there?"

"Ja," the German-born subgirl answered. "Thank God no people were there. The Abyssals went over the island thoroughly."

That made the Canadian magical infantryman nod. "Well, people in Mahora had much more important things to worry about..."

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

Aoi could only smile as she overheard the conversation between the subgirls and the Canadian magical from the Yukon.

Yes, it was good that Yū-sama didn't come back to Yokosuka traumatized at the sight of dead bodies thanks to the enemy.

That would make things much easier.

Fortunately for all the shipgirls who were meant to receive the many favours the girls of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School had been specially prepared to give them, Murata Eiichi had long studied their psychology.

He had also communicated with former co-workers in the Self-Defence Forces to learn what went into a kanmusu's BODY.

Incredible as it may sound to the uninitiated, a kanmusu was physically as Simon-pure a human as one born a mother's womb. Indeed, calling them "magical bioroids" wasn't off the mark when one came to understand the actual "mechanics" of such a being. Yes, the nature of the magic and metaphysics that went into a shipgirl made it much easier to conduct "repairs" to heal wounds suffered as witness what happened to that poor American destroyer three years ago. But when it came to the exact physical structure of a shipgirl, there was no difference between someone like Yū and a normal person like Kagurazaka Aoi.

However, the specific nature of the magic that went into a shipgirl's creation had worried Murata, especially given what said beings had been like when they had been steel ships in lieu of beautiful young human women.

Steel ships inhabited by MEN.

Usually quite YOUNG men as what normally was expected, especially in war.

Men who had their own inner drives and desires.

Sure, many shipgirls over the last half-decade had gone way out of their way to embrace their Fate-enforced womanhood with both arms, as witness the example of Kongō and her pursuit of Gotō Kiichi after he was assigned to take charge of the Fleet Shipgirl Project, to say anything of what just happened to Mutsu thanks to John Richardson. Sure, all shipgirls had a massive sense of duty that ruled their lives, even the more tragic ones such as Arizona and Pennsylvania. And sure, almost all shipgirls tended to act at their physical "age" dependent on how they turned out after emerging from a summoning pool. From the rambunctious "children" of the Akatsuki-class to say anything of many submarines to the slowly-maturing teenagers that were most destroyers to the voluptuous women that were cruisers and battleships to the supermodels that were aircraft carriers, they always seemed to act as they appeared when with others, even among their own kind in training and out on the oceans.

But underneath it all, Murata realized, there HAD to be a lot of pent up MALE sexual frustration building in their souls.

And that would cause a lot of issues in the future of people weren't careful.

Despite the connection Murata had possessed with the infamous Unit 731, the middle-aged man who had "reprogrammed" all the female staff and students of "M.C. High" to become the perfect sex machines was a loyal servant of Japan.

He was actually something of a liberal, Aoi then mused as she made her way to the back entrance to the subgirls' quarters, slipping off her shoes in the genkan before she scanned the chart indicating which of those girls lived where. Unlike those of his grandfather's generation, Murata Eiichi had accepted the truths of what caused the Greater East Asia War. He accepted that far too many evil things happened in that dark half-decade, all in the name of the Heavenly Sovereign and expelling the gaijin from the Pacific Ocean basin and eastern Asia. Evil things that had been the ultimate responsibility of _**Japanese**_ soldiers and sailors because they had been made to NEVER learn their proper duties being modern samurai demanded of them as had been spelled out in glaring detail within ancient works like the _Hagakure_. Evil and ghastly things that HAD to be punished as they were during that war and in the years after it ended on the decks of USS _Missouri_ one summer day in 1945. Unlike his father or grandfather, Murata Eiichi had loudly APPROVED of the Heavenly Sovereign's decision to BOYCOTT Yasukuni when war criminals such as Tōjō Hideki had been welcomed as kami within the walls of that shrine in the 1970s. Because of that, Murata had been welcomed as a research fellow within the Self-Defence Forces despite his "taint" due to his grandfather's actions in Unit 731. And while he never ONCE would have imagined using that man's research notes concerning ebony mesonium on innocent people like he had done to all his co-workers at Saint Maria Christos, the war with the Abyssals had changed things radically. As the Heavenly Sovereign himself had declared in his Imperial Rescript declaring a state of war against the dark sea yōma, all of Japan had to enter a new time when its people had to "endure the unendurable", stand together in support of the warriors fighting to keep them alive and healthy and sacrifice all to see final victory come.

When she had been made to see the need, Kagurazaka Aoi had agreed to what her co-worker had done to her and others.

It was necessary.

There was no way that normal Japanese people could fight the Abyssals.

Magical Japanese people had died by the HUNDREDS trying to beat them back.

And the number of Japanese metahumans could only be countered on one hand...

...with fingers to spare!

Indeed, what Negi Springfield had discovered five years ago had been the true miracle of the modern age.

When he understood it, Murata Eiichi had acted.

Yes, it had been a forced recruitment when he had selected Saint Maria Christos Girl's School for his experiments to create the perfect comfort women for the shipgirls...and yes, even "friendly" Abyssals like Tosa and her friends.

But it had to be done.

The Heavenly Sovereign had commanded it.

And Kagurazaka Aoi would obey.

As she was doing now.

Reaching the doorway to Yū's room on the second floor, the teacher blinked as she scanned the name plate there:

 **優・フリーダ・シュタインホフ** **1** **等海尉  
** **Lt. Yū Freida STEINHOFF  
** **呂** **500 (** **ユー** **)  
** **RO-500 (YŪ)  
** **第六潜水戦隊  
** **SUBMARINE DIVISION 6**

Nodding, Aoi took a deep breath before she stepped inside...

* * *

 _ **In the main recreation room on the ground floor...**_

"What the heck...?"

Iku blinked before she looked over. "What is it, Livi-chan?"

Harder blinked as she gazed up from the good hand she had been ready to play with her current hosts. "I heard something in the upper floor, around where Yū's room is, Shōko," the silver-haired Gato-class submarine with the dark eyes said, which made the other subgirls tense as their crews prepared for action. "Footsteps. Yū's meeting with Momoko and one of those Canuck magical mud-eaters who made the gym disappear like they did earlier. Who the hell's up there right now?"

The other subgirls — Iku, her sister Nimu and Shioi — exchanged looks, then they set the cards aside as they got up, moving to the landing of the stairs. Grateful they had adjusted enough to their new human bodies so as to not make noise as they ascended — _Thank you so much for the stealth lessons, Miss Negako!_ Harder thought — the submarines raised periscopes over the edge of the landing to scan down the hallway and see what was there; fortunately for them, the shape of the barrack block was in an "L" format, with the door to Yū's room perfectly visible from the stairs leading to the main floor.

It was an eyeful.

«Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, Nurse!» Iku hissed out over her radio set as she tried not to drool at that gorgeous lady who was now moving to sit down on the upper deck after she had stepped into Yū's room.

«Who the hell is she?!» Harder demanded. «I don't recognize her as base staff!»

That made the others perk. «Wait! Didn't she get brought in when those Canadian Foresters came to the Naval District earlier today? Something about the girls from some place down in Kyūshū being made into living sex toys?!» Nimu wondered.

«What's going on, guys?» Gōya then signalled from outside.

«We got an intruder in the barracks, Momoko,» Harder reported. «Local woman, young side of twenty-something, civilian in a school track suit of some sort. She just walked into Yū's quarters. She definitely looks to be a little drugged. She might have been one of the ones the Canucks brought in. That Forester that's with you know what's going on?»

Silence fell as the four subgirls waited for a response, then they tensed on sensing something just surge into the recreation room below. A wave of energy washed past them before three other women came up to join them. "Sound-muffling charm, ladies," the older woman with a sergeant's stripes-and-maple leaf on her slip-ons and the wand in her hand quietly said as she moved to poise herself behind Iku to look. "Stabskapitänleutnant Steinhoff's new guest won't hear us."

"Who the heck is she, Sarge?" Harder asked.

"A victim — along with over two hundred others from the same school, not to mention two baker's dozen more from a nearby health clinic — that was subjected to 'experiments' by a relative of one of Unit 731's officers, Lieutenant," Joan Harkaway answered. "Which turned them into the perfect _**comfort women**_." As the subgirls gaped, the native of Little Salmon shook her head. "By the looks of what Ms. Kagurazaka just did just now — not to mention what we just found out earlier thanks to a reconnaissance in force done by some of your fleet mates in Kyūshū — they were changed to be comfort women for all of you, most likely. Somehow, something just made Ms. Kagurazaka decide she was to be Stabskapitänleutnant Steinhoff's lover."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"So...she wants to give herself to Yū-chan...as her LOVEDOLL?!" Iku asked.

A sad nod answered her from the mother of three. "Exactly, Narahara-taii."

Iku, Nimu, Shioi and Gōya exchanged horrified looks while Harder tried not to look sick and Yū appeared to about to break down and cry. Despite all the nicknames unleashed on Japanese subgirls over the last five years, not even someone like Iku would EVER condone anyone being forced into the role of "comfort woman". "Some relative of an idiot from that bio-war unit in China actually figured out the way to turn normal girls into fuckin' SEX ROBOTS?!" Harder then snarled.

"Yes."

Yū blinked before her shoulders began to shake. "I don't want that...!"

She collapsed to her knees as a wail escaped her, earning her hugs from the other subgirls as Harkaway shook her head.

"Yū-sama...?"

Heads snapped around...

...then the Forester sergeant levelled her wand. " _ **STUPEFY!**_ "

A powerful stun bolt slammed into Kagurazaka Aoi, causing the teacher — who had ran out of Yū's room on hearing her begin to weep — to collapse face-first onto the floor before she would have leapt over the other subgirls to comfort the blonde U-boat. Before the other subgirls could ask what was going on, Harkaway was clicking a hidden communicator device attached to her jacket sleeve to get people over to the subgirls' quarters right away, with full magical restraining tools...

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, two hours before midnight...**_

"Got a drink for a brother Marine, Master Guns?"

MGySgt Thomas Beckett perked on hearing that familiar voice from the doorway, then he chuckled. "C'mon in, Colonel!" the Chicagoan bade as Samuel Quahog came inside. He then perked on seeing who else had come with the American secretary of magic. "Professor Dumbledore. Headmaster Konoe. Marshals. Come in. Make yourselves at home," he bade, waving them to a nearby couch in the security room that was used by the base staff to monitor all the shipgirl quarters.

"Thank you, Master Gunnery Sergeant," Albus Dumbledore said as people took their seats, then he perked as the junior magical Marine who did the overnight watch, Sergeant Sarah Mason, moved to prepare tea and coffee. "Ah! Thank you, young lady. For Tsukiko and Konoemon, it's the end of the day. Svetá and I are just getting started. That is more than appreciated."

"It's a pleasure, Professor," the adopted native of Urbana said with a smile as she wandlessly floated a cup of tea to the headmaster of Hogwarts. "All's quiet so far in the barracks, Master Gunnery Sergeant," she then reported.

"She showing promise, Master Guns?" Quahog asked as he gave the pretty dark-haired woman a critical look with both his normal eye and his mage-sight before he gazed back at his brother War of Liberation veteran.

"She's a lifer, Colonel," Beckett replied, making Mason blush before she served some coffee to Svetlána Múrometsa before making tea for Yomigawa Tsukiko. "She may have graduated from Tallemaja, but I'll take her into the field any time."

Dumbledore and Múrometsa perked. "You went to Tallemaja?" the latter asked.

"I was born in Stockholm, ma'am," Mason answered. "My father was the ambassador for the Department of Magic to the Royal Ministry of Magical Affairs. My mother was a charms mistress who taught at Tallemaja. Since I was born there..."

"You got the invite from there," Múrometsa finished with an approving nod.

The approval of the Liberator of All Europe was understandable in the eyes of her old friend from the Battle of Petrográd. The Tallemaja School of Magical Arts was Sweden's national magical academy; it was located on the shores of Torrön Lake in the county of Jämtland close to the border with Norway. Despite the whole of Scandinavia being seen as the natural recruiting territory for the Durmstrang Institute located on the Norwegian side of Lapland, the long-entrenched "no normal-born" recruiting policy running Gellert Grindelwald's alma mater even to this day meant that Tallemaja and its sister schools in Denmark (the Læsø Søfort School of Magecraft) and Finland (the Aarnivalkea School of Magic) possessed much higher levels of enrolment. All three schools were affiliated with Múrometsa's own alma mater, the Gamájun Academy of Magic on the shores of the Kárskoe Sea just east of Nóvaja Zemljá. They, along with the national schools of other nations on the Continent save Hogwarts, Beauxbâtons and Durmstrang, were members of the European Conference of Magical Academies, a governing board that monitored magical training among its member schools; allied to the ECMA were the national magical schools of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, not to mention recently-established magical academies in the former Soviet republics beyond the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea. The current Supreme Mugwump of the ICW had tried for years to get the ECMA legally endorsed so that Hogwarts and its sister Triwizard Tournament schools could be welcomed into the group; after it had been effectively "nationalized" by Múrometsa's allies during the October Revolution of 1917, the former Koldovstvórets Imperial Magical Academy near Sankt-Peterbúrg had joined forces with Gamájun and the magical schools of the future Warsaw Pact nations to establish the ECMA in 1948. Sadly, prejudices against normal-borns made even the most liberal school governors of Beauxbâtons balk at allowing the ECMA to have such sway over the older schools...and this was even after they had gladly welcomed a _**part-giant**_ of all people in Olympe Maxime to become headmistress in 1963!

"Mistresses Class of 1993, just after her father was elected to the Magical Congress, Marshal," Beckett answered, which made Quahog perk on realizing his co-veteran's co-worker was the daughter of Professor Jonas Mason, now the senior congressman for Illinois' magical citizens in Manhattan and a known magical constitutionalist who supported working more closely with the White House; the native of Urbana would NEVER address the secretary of magic as "magical president". "She joined the Corps after she came home; she's normally part of Company 'D' of the 75th. She did time at Salem teaching magical defence before she was assigned to help me work with our no-maj brothers keep this place secure from the Abyssals. Helped out with that incident concerning the admiral's daughter and that kuchisake-onna that tried to attack young Jane several months ago."

"I remember Konoemon briefing me on that," Dumbledore said as Konoe Konoemon grimaced; he had seen the memories of the shipgirls who had responded to that particular incident. "That isn't the only time this sort of thing has happened."

"No, sir," Mason answered, a grim look crossing her face. "Shortly after Commander Yamamoto adopted Marquess Potter, a teke teke came onto the base grounds at Yokosuka and tried to attack him." As Dumbledore paled in horror on realizing how close Harry Potter had come to being slain by such a beast, the native of Urbana and Stockholm winked. "Don't worry about it, Professor. The Lieutenants Kisaragi, Fukushima and Hamamoto intervened and got rid of the thing with Mistress Haru's help."

Dumbledore smiled. "Mutsuko, Fujiko and Kodachi, you mean."

"Same girls, Professor," Beckett affirmed with a smirk. "Fortunately, we have Master Akiharu and several other local 'specialists' willing to help out when it's necessary. Ditto with Colonel Ch'oe over at that restaurant near the front gate."

"Did you know what the colonel was planning with Lieutenant Owings, Tom?" Quahog asked.

That earned him a nonplussed look. "What happened?"

"She's now like either of the Sunbeam-class battleships, Master Gunnery Sergeant," Dumbledore reported, making his hosts gape in shock. "The colonel used the samgyet'ang that Sonia enjoys every once in a while to help induce enough mesonium into her body that would trigger an upgrade that would make her a modern missile-firing battleship, complete with modern sensory gear and even on-board helicopter stowage at the aft end of the hull. All it required was a proper trigger to make the upgrade happen. That occurred some hours ago at the former school that Negako and her brother have taken over to use for summoning shipgirls, when one of those poor nurses affiliated with that school near Kumamoto provided such via a kiss."

"You mean this 'M.C. High' thing that had the President on a tear earlier?"

"Same place, Tom," Quahog affirmed.

"Oh, Merlin..."

Beckett tensed as he felt something dance over his skin, which made him look towards the carrier quarters. "Shit! Intruder!"

He was instantly racing out of the room...

* * *

 _ **Near the carrier dorms...**_

 _Foolish boy! How DARE you run away from your obligations...?!_

Shuddering as he tried to calm himself down after being on the literal run for the past couple of days ever since that Chinese strumpet had chased him out of Nerima, the transformed Saotome Genma could only glare at the sight of the his transformed "son" now visible through the open window of the upper floor apartment being used right now by that damned creature who was said to be the living kami of a wrecked aircraft carrier from the recent world war. As the sweating panda tried to find his centre so he could concentrate on what he had to do — get in there, get his paws on "Ranko" before he could be intercepted by anyone, then get "her" somewhere where whatever had been done to her could be reversed to get his son back — he didn't realize that invisible magical energy that had reacted instantly to the presence of someone touched by such a powerful curse as one bestowed by the legendary Pools of Sorrow in the mountains of Qīnghǎi was now alerting a whole group of people who were concerned for the welfare of all who lived in the shipgirl dorms at Sasebo, including people such as Hayashi Kanami.

"Mein Herr..."

Genma perked on hearing that whispered voice, then he turned...

...before a burning bolt of energy slammed into his muzzle, causing him to scream out in agony as half his skull was nearly shattered by the impact, sending him flying out of the tree he had hid himself in — using the ki cloaking technique of the Umisen-ken at that! — to crash on the lawn near the carrier dorms. Before he could try to recover as his whole head echoed with waves of agony, the person who intercepted the "master" of the "Saotome-ryū" apparated out of the tree to appear on the grounds nearby, her wand out and a churlish smile on her quite beautiful face, the wreathed pip stars of a lieutenant colonel of the German Army on the shoulder straps of her grey mountain infantryman's jacket. Shouts echoed from nearby rooms as windows flew open and people stared outside to see what was going on; the impact of nearly a quarter-tonne of magically-transformed panda from that powerful bludgeoning curse had been quite loud. One of the people who had looked outside was a certain magically-created replica of the late heir to Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū. " _Oyaji_...!" Hayashi Kanami hissed.

"What is he doing here?! Doesn't he realize what could happen to him?!" Taihō demanded. Much that the armoured carrier didn't care whatsoever for Kanami's "father", she knew how much Genma's influence on Kanami still ruled her.

"He's going to learn it the HARD way," Kanami noted. "Who's the German girl?"

Taihō looked, focusing her optics and all her lookouts at the woman who was now confronting Genma. She was tall and young, about twenty in age. Possessing very beautiful looks with a welcoming face, she had curly short-cropped reddish brown hair and grey eyes equal to a rain-laden storm cloud. Above the left breast pocket of her jacket were a five-ribbon "salad bowl" of medals, led by the Magisches Verdienstkreuz — Austria's top-ranked magical award — and followed by the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the Orden Pour le Mérite Magique, the standard Iron Cross and the long service medal of the Magische Reichsarmee. Sure enough, the symbol of the Deathly Hallows that had been used as the central badge of the Black Maidens was on her ski cap and the left arm of her jacket. "It's true!" the carrier then hissed as she stared wide-eyed at her lover. "The Schwarze Mädchen HAVE come back! I thought that story Suzue-san passed on was just a joke...!"

Kanami's eyes narrowed. "She's an Avalonian," she reported as Genma groaned while he tried to roll back to his feet while his attacker braced herself. As a stunned cry of disbelieving shock escaped a certain British headmaster off to Kanami's right — that accompanied by twin delighted cries of delight from two master sorceresses who certainly did NOT deserve the term "dark lady" applied to either of them — she added, "Yeah, I recognize her now. Anna Wittmann. Austrian girl who liked the whole Anschluss idea when it went down in 1938. She's the boss of the First Battalion of that group. She was one of Negako's better students when she taught them before that stupid attack on Hawai'i got the Americans into the..."

The magically-transformed panda screamed out as his arms became a blur, sending vacuum blades racing at the native of Ramsau in Lower Austria. Kanami hissed out even if she was relieved that Anna had apparated clear before those deadly energy blades nearly ripped her to pieces. As the commander of the First Battalion appeared close to Genma's rear, she shook her head. "Fucking liar!" she snapped as she ran over to her backpack, reaching into a side pocket to draw out something that appeared to be like a Glock 19 pistol with a moulded laser targeting sight under the barrel forward of the trigger guard.

Taihō's eyes went wide on seeing the deadly Lawgiver in the hands of her lover. Meanwhile, Anna was busy peppering the still-hurting Genma with bludgeoning curses that caused the transformed martial arts "master" to shake from blows with the equal strength of large wrecking balls used to bring down condemned skyscrapers. As screaming American and Japanese shore patrol personnel moved to take up positions to prevent the intruder from escaping, the native of Ramsau shook her head. "You were Happōsai-sensei's student?" she sneered in Japanese, her central Bavarian accent echoing in her words. "It's no wonder that old Perversling wants to have nothing to do with you anymore, Herr Saotome. Not to mention your DAUGHTER...!"

Genma howled as he leapt into the air to lash out anew at this stupid woman...

" _ **TARGET: SAOTOME GENMA! KILL-DISINTEGRATE!**_ "

" _Target: Saotome Genma. Kill-disintegrate_!"

Genma's eyes went wide on hearing that familiar woman shout out, followed by that cold, metallic voice echoing those words...

...before a burning bolt of energy slammed into his liver!

A shriek of mortal pain escaped the transformed "master" of the "Saotome-ryū" as that torrent of energy seemed to pool up deep inside his body, ripping through his liver, stomach and other organs and growing inside him to the size of a basketball before it then exploded out in every direction. As time seemed to slow to a maddening crawl for Genma as his highly-developed senses absorbed every instant of his own destruction, blood was instantly vaporized as the cells of his body were burned by torrents of energy that chewed through flesh and bone like it was sulphuric acid melting rotted wood. His whole body was torn completely in half within a second, though the disintegrating effects of the kill-shot unleashed on him from his "son" continued to consume his body in waves of burning fire that caused people seeing this to turn away. Just as that aura of total destruction reached his neck to overwhelm him once and for all, Genma found himself lamenting that he had come in his cursed body, denied his human voice to shriek out a final defiant curse at his traitor child for KILLING him like this...!

With a hissing noise similar to a firestorm wind ripping through an inferno, Saotome Genma was no more.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

As some of the younger security personnel there began to look sick on realizing they had just watched someone be literally DISINTEGRATED before their eyes, Sarah Mason shook her head. "What in Merlin's name WAS that?!" she croaked.

"A Lawgiver, Sergeant."

Eyes locked on the raven-haired woman in the Shintō shrine miko robes, who was staring dispassionately at the place where the notorious martial arts "master" from Nerima had fallen, shot down like the foul criminal he had always been despite his veneer of "honour". "'Lawgiver', Marshal?" a wide-eyed Lieutenant Doug Papich asked; the second in command of the Sasebo special security guard team had been roused from his quarters nearby when the shouting echoed from outside.

"A weapon built by one of our nearby galactic neighbours, young lieutenant," Yomigawa Tsukiko explained with a tired smile. "They're called the Zephyrites. They're close working allies of the Noukiites, who control the solar system orbiting the Second Stars of the Southern Gate." Here, the former commander of the Greater East Asia Liberation Army looked up into the night sky, picking out the two bright stars of the Alpha Centauri system in the sky south of the galactic elliptic. "Quite religious and theological, on par with Iran these days. Despite that, the natives of Zephyrus are _also_ quite excellent gunsmiths. If ever trade links are opened with that world, their wares will be quite popular with your Second Amendment supporters."

Shaking her head, she gazed momentarily at the still Kanami standing at the window of her shared quarters with Taihō staring at the place where her would-be father had fallen at her own hands, then Yomigawa turned to march back to the security team room to finish her tea before she would return to Tenmon-jinja for a good night's sleep. Staring at a scene he admittedly never beheld in his years fighting the Dark, Albus Dumbledore then gazed on the woman who had won when he had brought down her chief ally in the Wars of Liberation. "Was it necessary, Tsukiko?" he quietly asked before perking on hearing a soft sob of relief escape the young lady who had turned such a terrible weapon upon that man, she now being comforted by her lover.

Yomigawa smirked. "Always the optimist, aren't you?" she wondered before a sneer crossed her face. "In the few times you've been in this country, you've encountered Happōsai, haven't you?" As Dumbledore blanched on hearing the name of the little gnomish-like multi-centenarian who had defied time in practice of both his martial arts capabilities and a level of hedonism that violently offended Dumbledore's Victorian Era sensibilities, she nodded behind her in the direction where Genma had fallen. "Saotome Genma was one of Happōsai's latest round of students. He was cursed by the pools of Jusenkyō to become that panda young Anna-chan fought before Kanami-chan dealt with him." As Dumbledore gaped in disbelief and horror on hearing that someone had actually gone to the _**Pools of Sorrow**_ of all places and had been cursed that way, Yomigawa smirked. "Befitting curse, I admit. Pandas are slothful creatures, wanting the whole of Existence to serve them. Kanami-chan had no desire to support such a beast even if, in every way imaginable, she was his own daughter. He was warned to stay away from her. He failed to listen." A shrug twitched her shoulders. "A miracle that idiot was able to get across from Japan to China to make his way to Jusenkyō without the Abyssals getting in his way. And return back. I wonder if he made some sort of deal with those things to keep his hide intact. Given how much he loved to sell off his son's hand in marriage..."

Hearing that, Svetlána Múrometsa snorted. "Nekul'túrnyj durák...!"

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

Having also watched this from the entrance of the cruiser quarters next to the carrier barracks was Kumano, the flagship of the Seventh Cruiser Squadron along with the three other Mogami-class heavy cruisers; they now served as the senior local patrol force of the Sasebo Naval District. Shaking her head as she considered what was going through the mind of Taihō's lover, the brown-haired heavy cruiser known to close friends as Matsuo Kuniko gazed upon her sisters.

"Did all of you get that?" she asked.

"Every second of it," Mogami affirmed with a curt nod and a churlish smile.

"And those idiots in Nerima think they're SO smart," Suzuya sneered out.

"They were warned," Mikuma noted.

Their sister and flagship nodded. "Get everything you saw downloaded into the records units," she then bade. "Have it sent off to Nahoko-chan immediately. I want her to get that out on YouTube right away."

"Even the part with that Austrian colonel, Kuniko?" Mogami asked.

Kumano nodded. "Even that part, Momoko."

Churlish smiles crossed the other cruisers' faces. "Should stir things up," Suzuya mused.

Chuckles escaped them as they headed back into their quarters...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Chungnyŏng** — Navy commander/Army lieutenant colonel/Air Force wing commander (NATO rank code OF-4); **Taewi** — Navy lieutenant/Army captain/Air Force flight lieutenant (NATO rank code OF-2); **Sŏnsaeng-nim** — Korean version of "sensei"; **CANSOFCOM** — Canadian Special Operations Forces Command; **Teraphobe** — One who suffers from **teraphobia** , a fear of monsters; **Kulakí** — Literally "tightfisted", these were the richest peasants in the early years of the Soviet Union (and, in the universe of this story, represent magical purebloods from Russia and the other former Soviet republics); **Colligatio Nosferatu** — Literally "union of the undead"; **Willkommen zurück** — Welcome back; **Königliches Regiment des Kanadischen Försters** — Royal Regiment of Canadian Foresters; **Nimmagier** — Short for **nicht-magische(r)** ("non-magical person"), the German version of the Canadian "nimmib"; **Drachentöter** — Dragon Killers; **Teke teke** — A partially-disembodied **onryō** ("vengeance spirit") born from a human who was literally cut in half by a train (the term comes from the onomatopoeia representing the scratching noise of the severed body being dragged over asphalt); **Umisen-ken** — Thousand Fists of the Sea; **Perversling** — Pervert; **Nekul'túrnyj durák** — Uncultured idiot.

Another quick pronunciation note when it comes to Korean: In the phrase **Kamsahamnida** ("thank you"), the third syllable is actually written as " **hap** " ( **합** ). However, both " **p** " and the harder " **p'** " sounds always changes to an " **m** " when coming before "n" or "m". This is similar to the Japanese concept where a final "n" slurs into an "m" when followed by a "m" or "p" sound. A further example of this is the name **Wangshimni** , which is the name of a neighbourhood and subway station in Sŏul I often travelled through when I worked there in 1996-97. The name itself is written as ( **왕십리** ), which would be transliterated "wang-ship-ri". Here, both the rules concerning a final "p" in a syllable and the following "r" sound come into play.

 **Sasaki Miyuki** , her fiancé **Mori Daisuke** and **Kiyotaka Akiharu** are characters from Harry Leferts' work, though I created the name for the tengu shopkeeper now living in Sasebo. The **Lord of the Deep** was another primal god-like being who made an appearance in _Harry Potter and the Shipgirls_ ; the entry that depicted him is Harry Leferts' snippet #24 at SpaceBattles.

Translation of native Canadian terms mentioned here:

 **Tłegǫ́hłı̨** — The town of **Norman Wells** on the Mackenzie River  
 **Délįne** — A charter community once known as **Fort Franklin  
** **Sahtú** — The native name of the **Great Bear Lake  
** **Dene K'e** — The language of the **Slavey people** who live in the central part of the Northwest Territories between Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes  
 **Qamani'tuaq** — The hamlet of **Baker Lake** in Nunavut  
 **Akilinik** — The **Thelon River** that flows through central Nunavut

The **gamájun** are harpy-like beings who have often appeared in Slavic folklore. Seen as a creature that symbolizes prophecy, it is often depicted as a large raven-feathered bird with a human woman's head. The gamájun is said to be a living symbol of wisdom and knowledge, rising from an island in the east close to Paradise. In the universe of this story, they are benevolent yōkai on the Japanese scale who can transform into human form and who were granted places of refuge from humans who wanted to enslave them by **Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq** (AKA **Túndra** ). And yes, before one asks, Túndra is derived from the _Alpha Flight_ monster that was first created by John Byrne in his initial work on that series from 1983-85.

Please read _Magic and Canada_ to see how the **Old Ones** (from _Buffy The Vampire Slayer_ ) played into the background story of **Josef von Taserich**. That work also depicts what happened to **Abraham Lincoln** thanks to the Undying Lord.

A **Warrant Officer Class I** ( **WO1** ) was the senior non-commissioned member rank in the Canadian Army before Unification in 1968. Its modern equivalent is a **Chief Warrant Officer** ( **CWO** ) and is rated at NATO rank code OR-9. A **Staff Sergeant** ( **S/Sgt** ) before 1968 would be called a **Warrant Officer** ( **WO** ) today and would be rated at NATO rank code OR-7. Both ranks titles are used these days by the combat forces of other Commonwealth nations such as the British or Australian Armies.

Patronymic used in this part: **Samuíl Avraámovich** — Samuel, son of Abraham.

The German armed forces have this rather odd tendency to use multiple rank levels to equal that of one rank level in other forces. For example, at NATO rank code OF-2, the German Navy have two separate ranks:

 **Stabskapitänleutnant** ( **StKptLt** ) ("staff captain lieutenant")  
 **Kapitänleutnant** ( **KptLt** ) ("captain lieutenant")

The same thing happens at NATO rank code OR-6 in the German Army:

 **Oberfeldwebel** ( **OFw** ) ("senior field usher")  
 **Feldwebel** ( **Fw** ) ("field usher")

Thus, one can understand Yū's and Joan Harkaway's embarrassment on being addressed by the higher rank equivalent title.

Austria's magical-only awards, with Canadian Order of Merlin equivalent post-nominal letters:

CMC — **Magisches Verdienstkreuz** ("Cross of Magical Merit") ( **MVK** )  
OMC — **Magischer Verdienststern** ("Star of Magical Merit") ( **MVS** )  
MMC — **Magische Verdienstmedaille** ("Medal of Magical Merit") ( **MVM** )

Shipgirls introduced here:

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Ryūjō** — Matsunaga Ryōko  
 **THG Ro-500** ( **Yū** ) — Yū Frieda Steinhoff  
 **THG I-58** ( **Gōya** ) — Hashimoto Momoko  
 **THG I-168** ( **Imuya** ) — Nakamura Tomomi  
 **THG I-19** ( **Iku** ) — Narahara Shōko  
 **THG I-26** ( **Nimu** ) — Yokota Minako  
 **THG I-401** ( **Shioi** ) — Nambu Nabiki  
 **THG Kumano** — Matsuo Kuniko  
 **THG Mogami** — Matsuo Momoko  
 **THG Mikuma** — Matsuo Miki  
 **THG Suzuya** — Matsuo Suzuko

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Hornet (1939)** — Anna Francine Knox  
 **USS Harder** — Olivia Mary "Livi" Dealey


	14. What Is The Blame for The War?

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the cruiser barracks, Tuesday 23 May, an hour before midnight...**_

"So, did you turn a profit?"

Hearing that amused question from the older light cruiser who served as one-half of the Eighteenth Cruiser Division with her sister, Fujinami Ryūnosuke perked, then she smirked as she held up a small wad of ¥10,000 and ¥1000 bills. "What does it look like, Tamiyo-san?" the new owner and mistress of Hamachaya said with a wink before she moved to stuff the money into her wallet; she would deposit same into a bank account arranged for her in the morning. "Damn! I'm not the world's greatest cook or anything, but the girls were going crazy for the seafood stir-fry I made along with the tea. If Oyaji was here..."

She then stopped as a lost look crossed her face. A partially-gloved hand reached over to squeeze her shoulder, causing Ryūnosuke to blink before she gazed on Tenryū. "I..." the former breathed out before she shook her head. "Damn..."

"You're still in mourning," the light cruiser stated as she pulled her hand away. "Nothing wrong with what you're feeling right now. For good and for ill, your old man was quite the influence on your whole life. Even if it's good that you're away from him and his screwed-up ideas about what you really were, he taught you how to fight and survive in a pretty unforgiving world. And even if you made friends when you were at Tomobiki High, he was still the primary influence in your life."

A snort escaped the "son" of the late Fujinami Fujimi. "Some friends..."

"That was our fault, actually."

Ryūnosuke looked over. "What do you mean?!"

"Kodachi-chan was under direct orders from Yoiko-san to keep the girls off the school grounds after they were allowed to come down from that Dobu Salada place to see what had happened," Tenryū explained before she sipped her own bottle of ramune. "Yeah, none of those girls asked about you, but if they weren't allowed onto the grounds until Yoiko-san declared it secured after the bodies were taken away, they might have remembered you. They knew you were living in the school."

"They didn't ask about me?"

Tenryū shook her head after thinking about it. "Not really."

Another snort escaped the other woman. "Like I said, some friends," she said with a bitter voice and a shrug of her shoulders. "Strange as it sounds, I feel more of a friendship with Moroboshi now than I do with people like Shinobu-san. He was worried about me; he said so in his letter apologizing for all the shit he did when Negako-san was in his head and he couldn't really think straight." A chuckle then burst from her lips. "Even told me that I should poison Oyaji and get it over with..."

"Yeah, the Avalonians can be pretty harsh to child abusers, can't they?"

Both women laughed, then they gazed out of the window of the tomboy's guest room, which was several doors down from the room Tenryū shared with her sister Tatsuta. Night had long since fallen and some of the floodlights that kept the grounds bright and exposed during the early evening were being shut down to conserve power. For Ryūnosuke, the lack of things like air conditioning didn't really bother her; she was used to living in a small shack close to the ocean. Staying inside Tomobiki High School had been quite different for her with almost all the comforts a normal family could ask for, but given how much people in government had gone out of their way to make the town seen "normal" to all the aliens who lived there...!

"Loads of people around the base who could loan their shoulders to cry on if you need it," Tenryū then noted as she gave her host a knowing look. "Don't bottle it all back, Ryū-chan. You're going to hurt yourself if you do that."

Hearing that made Ryūnosuke smirk. "Moroboshi doesn't bottle it back, does he?"

"Oh, no. Ataru's got a pretty ugly way of letting it out." Here, Tenryū smirked. "He's got SIX Abyssal princesses and a whole shit-tonne of cruisers and destroyers to his credit. Most of that was when he was in the Med with Roberta Ansaldo."

That made the other woman gape. "How the fuck could he do that? I know him havin' Negako-san in his head imprinted all her knowledge and skills in his body, but fuck...!" She shook her head. "SIX princesses?!"

"Something about Morningstar Plain you haven't been told about."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"He turns into that guyver-thing, right?"

Tenryū's head snapped over. "How the HELL did you know about THAT?!" she hissed.

A shudder rushed through Ryūnosuke's body as she tried not to look nauseous. "I was getting my stuff moved in. Chiyo-san was helping out since she just got off duty helping teach the little ones in class. After that, she invited me into her room to get something to drink before I went to open up Hamachaya for the night shift. I saw this model on her nightstand. Looked like Moroboshi, but half his body was gone. Kinda like a Terminator with half his organic shell ripped away..."

"The Cyborg," the light cruiser explained. "Damn it, Chiyo...!"

"Hey, don't razz her!" the tomboy snapped. "She didn't say anything about it, but it was pretty easy for me to guess. Moroboshi took out that one princess up by Alaska when he and Negako-san went up to meet Yoiko-san. So..."

"You can't tell anyone living back in Tomobiki, Ryū-chan," Tenryū warned, which made her host gape in confusion at her. "It'll be okay for Rumiko-chan and Chigaiko-chan to find out about that part of Ataru, but not anyone who has any links to that rich fool Mendō or anyone else. People outside that town don't trust any of them because of how much they loved to fawn over that Oni bitch." As her host scowled, the light cruiser sighed. "Redet found out about Ataru's bond to the Master of Entropy. That's the Avalonians' god of death; it's in his image that the Cyborg's modelled after. That's what ultimately scared her off the planet and sent her back to Uru. Knowing how quick people are in blaming the poor guy for shit that happens there, do you want people to start thinking he _**willingly**_ made his bond with the Master just to scare Redet off? Especially after what happened last night?" As Ryūnosuke blanched on being reminded of that attack on Lum's Stormtroopers that also made her an orphan, the cruiser shook her head as she finished her ramune, then tossed the bottle right into the recycling bin nearby. "He's kinda okay when he turns into that thing, but don't push it, okay?" she advised as she gave her host a knowing look while she pulled out another bottle of ramune from her track pants pocket, then opened it with her thumb.

"I ain't fuckin' _**suicidal**_ , man!" Ryūnosuke said with a barking laugh before she sipped her tea. "Damn! FIVE of those princesses when he was shacked up with Roberta-san?! What the hell was he doing when he was in Italy anyway?!"

"Being a normal teenage boy that didn't have to put up to verbally abusive mothers, pushy would-be wives, so-called friends that would stab him in the back if they thought it would give them a chance with said would-be wife, a rich fool and his family of loons who had more money than brains, two greedy spiritual clerics who NEVER were of any help to him, not to mention being in a town full of yōkai and other such things that just loved to heap bad luck all over him just to get their own jollies." Here, Tenryū snorted as she crossed her arms, leaning on the table. "He kinda got straightened around after Negako got out of his head by that Dragonspeaker girl and her friends on Okusei. After he helped free the Avalonians, he pretty much got turned off from skirt-chasing pretty girls. Just seeing all that misery really hit the guy hard. Once he got to Taranto, he just spent a month unwinding and doing nothing, experiencing what it was like to live something of a 'normal' life. When that princess who took over the Straits of Messina decided to be a bitch and tried to hit Taranto, he went 'Borg on her and tore her apart. Ended up saving Roberta-san and her sister Irene-san; she's Imperio. It's on YouTube if you know where to look."

"Never saw something like that."

Tenryū hummed as she considered that. "No doubt because of whoever was fuckin' editing news to make sure people in Tomobiki never found out about the outside world. Especially when you're dealing with fuckin' temporal paradoxes."

That made Ryūnosuke moan. "Right. Forgot about all that! Shit, it's no wonder that Moroboshi turned out to be the cold bastard he was to some people after we got back from Uru! He had a whole fuckin' YEAR to put Lum behind him!"

Both girls then laughed as they considered that, then they relaxed and enjoyed their drinks. "Yeah, he did kinda care for her," Tenryū noted. "She's got her good points. She's a clasic military brat who got told by her 'superiors' not to say shit to people like you, much less her 'hubby'..." She shook her head. "Well, she found out the hard way that keeping secrets like the Niphentaxians was the wrong thing to do in the end. Without real, true trust, any sort of marriage would fall apart in the end."

"Yeah..."

A knock echoed at the door, making both women turn as a smiling heavy cruiser peeked inside. "Late night party?" the fourth of the Takao-class heavy cruisers wondered with an amused smile and a twinkle in her crimson-brown eyes.

Tenryū moaned. "Damn it, Chiyo...!"

"What?!" Chōkai demanded.

"The Cyborg?!"

The raven-haired cruiser blinked before she sighed. Like the first of her class of light cruisers, the fourth of her class of heavy cruisers was in normal civilian clothes, not the sleeveless vest-like blouse and white skirt she used as her duty uniform at sea. "Well, it's best that Ryū-chan and her friends learn it right away, Tamiyo," the flagship of the Eighth Fleet admitted as she came into the room and sat beside the table opposite her host, then she nodded thanks as Ryūnosuke made her some tea. "Who knows if some idiot Abyssal might come charging into Sasebo and Ataru-kun needs that ability to save lives. It'll go viral, that's for certain! People in that town of useless fools will be definitely seeing it this time!" She winked at Ryūnosuke.

"You WANT them to see it?!" the tomboy asked.

"Hai, I do. A lot of us do," Chōkai said with a nod.

"Chiyo...!" Tenryū hissed.

"Think about it, Tamiyo," the heavy cruiser warned. "Even now, after losing some of their nominal social leaders thanks to the Iranians, there are too many in Tomobiki who want things to get back to what they see as 'normal'. Especially now that the Schwarze Mädchen have sealed the restaurants from Sakurambō and her uncle? Far too many people in that town — especially someone with as much power and influence as Mendō Shūtarō — see what's happening there as an assault at what they've seen as 'right' and 'proper'. The instant the images of the Cyborg killing the Messina Princess when he saved Roberta-san and Irene-san are seen by someone in that town, it'll be another riot." Here, the cruiser known to close friends as Hōjō Chiyo then scowled. "And another terrorist attack," she hissed out. "How many more will be slaughtered THIS time, I wonder."

That made Ryūnosuke blanch. "Shit..."

"What's going on in Sasebo?" Tenryū asked. "Did Kuniko send you something?"

Chōkai nodded. Seeing that, Ryūnosuke smirked. Like all other cruisers, Tenryū was always tied into a worldwide gossip network that relayed choice bits of information at speeds faster than normal intelligence support staff could match. "Saotome Genma tried to break into the base to kidnap Kanami-san." As the light cruiser gasped and the tomboy gaped, the heavy cruiser shook her head. "Kanami-san killed him with a Lawgiver shot to the liver. Level Sixteen."

"What's a Lawgiver?" Ryūnosuke asked.

"Particle-photon pistol built by the Noukiites' primary allies on Zephyrus," Tenryū explained as she shook her head. "It's like the same-named weapon in the British _Judge Dredd_ comics. Computer controls to determine what type of shot you want to make, five hundred-round magazine, in-flight controls to shoot around corners, plus DNA targeting scan." She shook her head. "After she finally moved here to Yokosuka to be with Taeko once Negako helped her become an Avalonian, Kanami sneaked into Nerima and used that thing's computer to get scans on the idiots she had to deal with after she got separated from her 'brother'. All it needed was someone to NOT listen to the warnings and she got to use it to erase one of the monsters that treated her like total shit. Did Nahoko get all the security recordings for her next podcast, Chiyo? Knowing Kuniko..."

"She has it," Chōkai affirmed. "Podcast goes out at nine tomorrow morning."

Ryūnosuke moaned, "Oh, man...!"

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka Naval District Headquarters, that moment...**_

"You mean that novel is REAL, Mister President?!"

Gotō Kiichi was gaping in shock at the very honoured guest now seated before his desk. "Indeed it was, Admiral," Abraham Lincoln stated before nodding thanks as a wide-eyed Niiyodo handed him a cup of apricot tea. "The 'no-maj' edition edits out the involvement of the Department of Magic in helping put down Adam Sewell and his rebels to the Colligatio Nosferatu. The magical edition that young Commander Yamamoto's adopted son could find in the Hogwarts library has the whole story."

Awed gasps escaped the crowd of shipgirls that had instantly followed the nigh-immortal sixteenth president of the Union to this meeting with their own fleet commander. "That should make some interesting reading," Nagato mused as she crossed her arms, reminding herself to contact her son about this so he could get Hermione Granger to check the school library out. "So what does bring you here, sir? Much that we're honoured to have you here, if you're the 'Rail-Splitter' that terrorized all the vampires in North America during this 'score and four' period after the Civil War, what does that mean? Sunnydale and all other known or suspected Hellmouth locations are all quite quiet. The Slayers are keeping strong vigil over those places. Anything happens, Buffy-san will contact all fleet commanders immediately to put out the warning alert."

"Which is a good thing, Commander," Lincoln stated before sipping his tea. "Much that I don't wish to sound alarmist, but I was asked by Jed to look in on this situation before Commander Swanson and her group were called back to duty at the Recruit Training Command four years ago. The ebony meson stench I picked up when I helped destroy the Roads Princess two years ago was quite apparent." As jaws dropped on hearing that it was this deadly vampire hunter who had destroyed the Abyssal leader who wanted to keep the American shipgirl forces bottled up in Norfolk, the former frontier lawyer sighed. "It wasn't anything that my own 'patron', so to speak, caused directly. However, from what I've seen after I fought these poor creatures several times, this whole damned war may be just a byproduct of all the metahuman battles that rocked the planet during the last world war." As people gaped at him, Lincoln shook his head. "Don't be shocked at that revelation, my friends. You know how good mesonium is when it comes to masking the true nature of one's very being from outside probing."

Grim nods echoed around the room. "The mesonium that rendered you practically immortal and tipped you over the edge before the Score and Four got started in earnest came from the Undying Lord himself," Jun'yō mused as she sipped her sake, keeping herself under control as best as she could. Seeing how much the second of the Hiyō-class liners-turned-aircraft carriers was holding back from getting herself totally sloshed, the other shipgirls were tense. This was serious. "That's a source that's over twenty-five millennia old if all the stories of that man are real. Save for whatever deposits were dropped on Canada because of the Power Jewel, you would be able to see what was going on a lot better than most people."

"You're saying that all the battles between the Übermenschen, the War Hawks, the Liberty Legion, the Black Dragon Society, the Soldiers of Freedom and all the other groups that were fighting their own war while normal people and magicals were fighting their wars somehow caused the Abyssals to be born, Sensei?!" Akashi asked after she exchanged a shocked look with Vestal; both repair ships had been leading the allied navies' research into Abyssal origins.

"It was _**part**_ of the cause, Commander Miyazato. Mesonium has been a part of the whole biosphere of our beautiful planet since the day three billion years ago that the Seekers phased out of this existence and left the Power Jewels behind, to say anything of their forge that later became the planet Yiziba," Lincoln explained. "Because Dean's Jewel is the so-called 'Keystone' Power Jewel, it acted like a lodestone, pulling larger fragments of mesonium from different locations to eventually crash-land on Earth over the billions of years that followed that event. Including the meteor that gave Josef his power and immortality." As people nodded, the former president sighed. "I know it's quite acceptable these days to seek out one single source point to act as the focus of blame for all the common woes that haunt humanity, but it's not that simple, my friends."

Hearing that, Gotō nodded. "Many of us in the Admiralty Council have long come to think something similar, sir," he noted. "Given the existence of neutral if not friendly Abyssals such as Commander Yamamoto's daughter and her friends..."

Running footsteps made people spin around just as the door flew open, revealing a wide-eyed Kirishima. "Teitoku! Wanko-san is here! She just teleported in with Revina-san and her squadron! She just found out what happened to Hoppō-chan...!"

More footsteps made all the shipgirls tense as Lincoln leapt to his feet.

What happened next even left all the shipgirls totally breathless.

"Are you wishing to start a battle, young lady?"

A wide-eyed and quite still installation princess from Down Under was now staring at a glistening woodsman's axe blade, the mixture of silver and ruby mesonium powered by a being who was well into his second century of existence and had been granted his quasi-immortality by someone over a HUNDRED-AND-TWENTY times that age making her already pale skin turn as white as a sheet as she realized how close to being decapitated she now was. As the shipgirls and others gaped at this — the Rail-Splitter had moved at a speed probably only the Flash could comprehend — Wanko's primary escort instantly made rapid warding motions with her hands to wave off the fury of this deadly hunter of dark creatures. Gazing into the hazel eyes of the frontier lawyer-turned-vampire hunter who was now in the middle of this room, the woman who once tried to rule the section of the Timor Sea known to the locals as Beagle Gulf took a breath. "To encounter the famous Rail-Splitter...!" Wanko then said as she waved Revina down. "I have no need for battle, Mister President. What I want and deserve is...!"

"No, Rail-Splitter! Don't hurt Hoppō's big sister!"

Heads snapped over...

...then Wanko cried out in relief as she pulled clear from Lincoln's axe to kneel before the wide-eyed child-shaped princess born from the spirits of Unalaska who had become the first true window to the world of the Abyssals when she had been rescued from death by Enterprise and Yamato. "Hoppō!" the taller and older-looking woman said as she gave the younger princess a close look. "I felt your pain earlier! Who attacked you?! Was it some fool magical?! Who was it?!"

Hoppō smiled as she playfully patted the older-looking Abyssal's cheek. "No, it wasn't some stupid sparkle who tried to take Big Brother away from Hoppō, Big Sister!" She then sighed. "The mean kids are here now."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

Wanko winced as Revina began to look around, the fright on the carrier's face at being told THEY were close by quite apparent. "From Ganges Island, you mean?" she wondered. "So they came here after that idiot tried to starve them out...!"

"What idiot are you talking about?" Enterprise asked, crossing her arms.

"The Volcano Islands Princess," Wanko explained. "She came into existence close to the Sulphur Islands decades ago, powered by the residual magic of that school that was on the southern island." As people nodded, Wanko boosted Hoppō into her arms, then moved to sit on a couch while Revina assumed a protective position behind the woman who had effectively brought her into being. "She found the residual magic of Mahōtokoro quite intoxicating even if that school had been closed down for decades. She soon discovered the existence of the experimental lab on Ganges and sent forces to investigate. Of course, once those children fought her off, she took it as a personal affront, then laid siege."

"Is she still trying to find those children, Wanko-san?" Nagato asked.

"No doubt, she'll be interested in finding out where they are, Nagato," the installation princess stated as she gave the battleship who had adopted Hoppō a warning look. "She wasn't in on the attack that hurt my sister before Enterprise and Yamato got there, but she doesn't particularly care for 'weaklings'. She would not have cared for Hoppō 'fraternizing with the enemy' as she did. She's almost as vicious as that cannibal oni who took over the Bonin Islands near here."

People sneered on hearing about that one Abyssal leader, who had become quite notorious for eating the flesh of slain humans after she had effectively blocked off Tōkyō Bay from seaborne access eight years ago. "Well, caring for one's kin is certainly an acceptable reason for storming the ramparts like you did, young lady," Lincoln then said with a touch of joviality in his voice as he stowed his axe, then moved to take his seat while the others in the room relaxed. "Though I do hope you did speak to Captain Patey about this before you came storming up here. Much that our friends in Canberra appreciate your moving to keep the peace around Australia, especially from those lunatics dominating the Indian Ocean, she is charged by a very powerful entity to help protect that land, much as her sister is charged to protect her namesake country as well."

Wanko chuckled. "I wish not to anger either the Rainbow Serpent OR the Earth Mother in that regard, Mister President. Be assured, Australia and Aotearoa are both aware that I'm here now. They also understand my reasons for coming."

People blinked. "Australia?! Wait a sec'! She was summoned like the rest of them were to Crib Point!" Iowa protested.

"You speak of the cruiser, Iowa. I speak of the fast battleship."

Kongō blinked. "The battlecruiser from the Great War?"

"The same, Kongō. You know her sister as New Zealand; she is called 'Aotearoa' these days. Even if the sparkles of the Land of Sahul and the Land of Tasmantis were quite late in comparison to the sparkles of the Land of the Tear of the Stars, they were willing to construct — or rather, REBUILD — monster slayers to keep their own sailors safe from the Hungry Ones...!"

"Ah!" Revina wailed as Hoppō fearfully hissed out. "Don't speak of _**them**_ , Boss!"

People stared wide-eyed at the fretting Abyssals. "Man! This gets freakier by the fucking minute," New Jersey protested...

* * *

 _ **The main repair bay, that moment...**_

"She's TOTALLY cleansed?!"

A teary-eyed Mutsuki could only gape in both shock and hope as she looked up to the converted cargo ship that served as the repair auxiliary for the Canadian Pacific Fleet. "Hai, Mutsuko, your sister is totally cleansed of what the Abyssals did to her off Wake Island," Cape Breton stated as she winked playfully at the first of her class of destroyers, giving her a reassuring look. "You actually almost succeeded when you people went to Ironbottom Sound to clear out that infestation there. You just didn't realize she had a lot of ebony mesonium in her body that kept her soul locked with our enemies, forcing her to rejoin their ranks when Fujiko here confronted her other-self." The middle aged-looking former cargo ship with the short-cropped black-tinged silver hair and the sea blue eyes then gazed upon Fubuki, who blushed at that attention. "Not only that, once your people cleared out of there, both Australia and Sundown went in there and depth-charged the whole of Ironbottom Sound with Mark XLVI mesonium warheads to fully cleanse it and allow new life to return to that area, as agreed to between the Earth Mother, the Rainbow Serpent and the Lord of the Deep. Hopefully soon, refugees now in Brisbane will be able to go home."

The shipgirls there all blinked. "Figures that YOU would know the truth of the Ryūseizen. Darlene-sensei's home port is just up the coast from _Discovery_ ," Zuikaku said as she crossed her arms. "What's this about Heather-san?"

"I'm not talking about the cruiser who was second of that name, Suzue-san," Cape Breton stated as her eyes twinkled. "I'm talking about the FIRST of the name that served in Her Majesty's Navy of the Commonwealth. After she was 'scuttled' in 1924 to appease the idiots who couldn't see that the Commonwealth was as much an independent nation as the Dominion, she was reborn as a fast battleship on the same scale as Darlene and her sister. With some help from our friends at _Gravé_ and _Whidbey_." As the Japanese shipgirls took that in, the repair auxiliary known to friends as Elena Clarke gazed down on the peacefully sleeping Kisaragi, who was now in a special diagnostic bed created by Yūbari. "She wasn't as active as our girls were during Big Mistake Number Two, but Australia was busy during the time you were all in the Solomons blocking off the Americans' advances. Not to mention Aotearoa." As the girls perked, Cape Breton winked again. "New Zealand."

"What did we do wrong?"

That was a fretful-looking Kaga. "You did nothing wrong, Kei-san," the Canadian repair auxiliary stated as she gazed upon the converted battleship. "When I heard that Kyōko came back, I went up to _Whidbey_ and begged Darlene and her friends to get down there to make sure she stayed back with you people. She didn't have your level of strength to fight off the enemy's influence on your soul, so she needed help." A sigh escaped her. "Sadly, the admiral in charge of CANBATRON ONE at the time wasn't as sympathetic to the issue as Admiral Thompkins would have been." Her eyes lowered in sympathy. "Then again, he lost his children to the Abyssals. All were 'W' Division Forcemen." As the other shipgirls winced, Cape Breton shook her head. "I wonder why he didn't take his life to turn Darlene and the others into kanmusu. Ah, well, he's retired and put out to pasture. General Raeburn made it clear that she won't tolerate interference in CANSOFCOM operations."

"Even from your Wizengamot, Elena-san?" Yūbari wondered.

The repair ship from Vancouver chuckled. "Our magicals may be a lot more sensible than most 'sparkles' are, Yūka-san, but they have their own political issues as well. Even if they're trained to understand that 'muggles' are just as good as normals when it comes to many things, they like the Statute's protections as much as anyone from Europe, America or elsewhere. Some aren't as scared as some of our southern neighbours are as witness what's happened to Sarah-san, but there is fear."

"There will be hope, too."

Eyes locked on Kaga. "What do you mean, Kei?" Zuikaku asked.

"HOW many sailors in both world wars have the Ryūseizen all saved, Suzue-san?"

Nods all around...

...then people perked as a surprised cough escaped the sleeping purple-haired destroyer on the diagnostic bed. "Kyōko!" Mutsuki gasped as she moved past Cape Breton to cup her sister's cheeks with both hands. "Wake up, Kyōko...!"

A pair of deep purple-brown eyes fluttered. "Who...is...Kyōko...?"

Everyone perked before Mutsuki flustered in embarrassment. It had been Kisaragi's sinking during the Wake Island operation that prompted the Letter and the creation of human names for the kanmusu. "It's me, Kisaragi-chan!" she hissed out as the other destroyer's eyes began to focus. "Mutsuki! You've back at the Naval District! You came back home! You're home...!"

Her voice dissolved into a series of wailing coughs and moans of thanks as she nearly swamped the now understandably-confused Kisaragi with a hug. While other destroyers all turned away to hide their own sympathetic tears, Cape Breton sighed before she perked, her ears perking as the faint buzzing noise of a very traditional musical instrument that was common across the world but had found particularly good use among the indigenous people of the smallest of the world's continents...

"Wa ashhadu 'an lā 'ilāha 'illā llāh muḥammadun rasūlu llāh...!"

A croaked gasp escaped Kisaragi on hearing that voice repeat the sacred words of the ash-Shahādah which had been whispered by a scowling olive-skinned destroyer in Bedouin-like robes, then welding a beautiful scimitar that burned with the Atom of True Life the then-Abyssal warrior confronted in the Arabian Sea several weeks before...just before said sword was plunged into the human heart of the second of the Mutsuki-class destroyers by the thirteenth of the Battle-class destroyers, shattering the dark bonds of the Abyss on her soul and brutally cleansing such a horrid stain from her very being. As she looked around in fear — as if she was expecting Ārtemis to charge out from the fog and permanently kill her this time — a tired voice echoed from the shadows nearby, "That ought to do it. Poor little sheila was being bombarded by all the memories of what she was made to do by those bottom-sucking bitzers." Footsteps then made everyone look over. "G'day, mates."

People turned to all gape in awe on seeing the second of the Indefatigable-class battlecruisers from the Great War now standing there, her arms crossed and an amused smile on her face. To the surprise of many who had visited the Commonwealth over the last half-decade, the woman known to close friends as Gayle Patey seemed to be a young, female version of a certain crocodile hunter who appeared in a series of movies decades before, complete with a crocodile-skin leather vest, a necklace of crocodile teeth around her neck and a black felt hat also decorated with teeth from that particular species of reptile. She did wear the standard sleeveless diver's skinsuit that was common fashion among the shipgirls of the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand navies; befitting her later career as a ship rebuilt to hunt sea monsters, Australia's suit was the dark gunmetal grey that Sundown, Lady Jane and Chennalton wore. Her pendant **09** was in white on the upper hips; like other capital ships, there was no flag superior letter before the numbers. Her vest had the rank insignia of a captain in the Royal Australian Navy on shoulder straps, with her heraldic crest on her hat above her forehead. She had the lean and weathered look of a shipgirl who had spent many years as a ship, with nicely-cropped grey-tinged blonde hair and dark brown eyes similar to the sandy plains of the Outback that filled most of her namesake country's physical landmass.

"You...!"

Heads then snapped over. "Yayoi-san...?!" Cape Breton began.

A wailing scream escaped Mutsuki's and Kisaragi's sister Yayoi as she raced over at flank to nearly knock the just-arrived battlecruiser off her feet with a hug that could shatter a boulder. While other destroyers exchanged knowing looks as the cyan-haired third of the Mutsuki-class screamed a torrent of thanks to the shipgirl who symbolized the crew that rescued hers after she had been sunk off Normanby Island near New Guinea in the autumn of 1942, Kisaragi blinked before she stared at her older sister. "Mutsuki-chan...who is she?" she asked in a voice that cracked with considerable disuse over the months.

Mutsuki smirked. "One of the Ryūseizen, Kyōko!"

A confused blink answered her. "'Kyōko'?"

"That is a bit of a story, Kisaragi-san," Kaga warned as others smiled...

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, that moment (local time: Three hours after lunch)...**_

"Ah! It's good to be back..."

"What happened, Albus?"

Hearing that question from his deputy, Albus Dumbledore looked over before he smiled while Fawkes flamed himself out of the main reception hall. "Quite a few interesting things, Minerva," the headmaster stated as he waved Minerva McGonagall with him up the stairs into the administrative tower. "It seems that President Bartlet decided some years ago that he wanted special help he could implicitly trust to give him a decent analysis of the Abyssal situation without the Magical Congress trying to haze the intelligence he required to keep people safe." He gave her a knowing look as they walked up the stairs. "You had an encounter with that man after you took my place as transfiguration professor during a Hogsmeade weekend, I believe."

That made the native of Caithness gape in shock before her eyes went wide. " _ **President Lincoln?!**_ " she gasped with a touch of giddiness in her voice as she recalled watching the famous Rail-Splitter in action dealing with a daywalker vampire who had tried to turn several of her first generation of students during a spring weekend in nearby Hogsmeade. "President Bartlet was able to persuade him to help out?! I thought he only concerned himself with daywalker vampires!"

"The President told me the Colligatio Nosferatu is staying out of this situation altogether, Minerva," Dumbledore stated as he made a gesture with his hand to allow the gargoyle guarding his office to step aside so he could get inside. "No doubt, I'm sure Mister Sturges persuaded Mister Plantagenet of the wisdom of not trying to force issues with the Abyssals making such a mess of things worldwide. The president also told me that both the Powers that Be and the Old Ones are also remaining neutral in all this." As he sensed McGonagall shudder on hearing of those ancient demons who had once held total sway over Earth many millennia before the Common Era, he closed his eyes as he sensed a familiar presence. "Hello, Vicky."

"Bumblebee," came the voice of the single-armed, one-eyed reborn man-of-war in the formal uniform of a rear admiral from the days she had sailed headlong into the enemy line at Trafalgar, now standing by the window overlooking the Black Lake. "Hello, McGonagall," Victory then greeted as she gave the transfiguration professor a polite nod of her head before she moved to take her seat. "Some interesting things I've heard from various nimmibs who help us keep a watch on your people."

Dumbledore's eyebrow arched as he took his seat, offering his bowl of sherbet lemons for the visiting man-of-war. "What rumours are that?" the headmaster then asked as his deputy took her own seat beside the flagship of the First Sea Lord.

"That certain warriors from your little fight against your old best friend didn't die at the Battle of Nurmengard," the first rate ship-of-the-line known only to her closest friends as Catharine Nelson noted as she gave him a look and an arched eyebrow showing considerable amusement. "Some of them have decided to take some ancestry tests with those fine fellows at Gringotts over in Diagon. Got some very surprising results, especially when it comes to the House of Lords Wizengamot."

The man who was also Chief Wizard of the Wizengamot — in effect, the equivalent of the Lord Speaker in the upper chamber of Parliament — nodded. "Yes, I would suspect Elizabeth would move quickly to secure her people's position in society once she sensed that there were potential seats to claim in the Wizengamot. Given that a lot of her girls from Germany potentially have Hanoverian blood in them, the chances are good they're descent of squibs from various houses here."

"Full quorum," Victory stated as McGonagall's eyes widened in stunned horror. "Colonel Diana von Meißen, Major Linn Heinrich and Sergeants Major Christine Schultz and Suzanne Stuart. Four of your magical earldoms, I believe."

"The _**Schwarze Mädchen**_...?!" McGonagall croaked out in horrified disbelief.

"Yes, Minerva," Dumbledore confirmed. "I just had the pleasure of seeing Anna Wittmann in action over in Sasebo an hour ago." He tried not to shake his head on remembering what he had also seen there. "It turns out that Rittmeister von Taserich didn't care to see them killed off during that dratted war. His sympathies to muggleborns is well-known to you, I believe." As McGonagall nodded on recalling all the tales she had read about the Undying Lord and how much he had supported normal-born magicals — much to the unending frustration of purebloods that dominated wizarding Germany and its predecessor states over the centuries — the headmaster sighed. "Given what our Niphentaxian 'friends' had available to them at the time of the war, it was easy for the Rittmeister to obtain replacement bioroid bodies for Elizabeth's whole coven to allow that tre'cha power of theirs to save them when they moved to stop the invasion by the Mage of the Beginning. They were just found in a cave close to Nurmengard Prison a year ago, still in cryogenetic suspension after their souls were transferred over."

Horror crossed the younger professor's face. "Frozen all those years...?!"

"Colonel Gibbon didn't seem to care too much about that."

Both magicals gazed at the shipgirl in their midst. "You've met Jessica, Vicky?" Dumbledore asked as his eyes twinkled with delight on hearing that the younger sister of the Black Maidens' last commander had weathered that experience well.

"Since the Black Maidens are now seen as part of the European Corps' specialized warfare wing under that one Canadian general that was sent over to help, the Fourth Battalion keeps watch over the British Isles as well as the western end of the Continent," the man-of-war stated. "They were there six months ago at Gibraltar when that general went after the Strait Princess and destroyed it." Noting McGonagall's confused look, Victory sighed. "Her name is Jessica Dover, McGonagall."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"The _**Soul-Eater**_...!" the deputy headmistress moaned out, remembering all the dark tales that had been spoken of concerning the half-Ukrainian pilot's daughter from Winnipeg who had bonded with a millennia-old, meson-poisoned zhar-ptýtsja thanks to a necklace owned by her mother's family for generations. "Yes, she would find hunting Abyssals quite satisfying, I believe," she then said as she tried not to shiver on imagining what actually happened between the Strait Princess and the Soul-Eater of the Dnipró off Gibraltar. "I wasn't here when Professor Raeburn and her friends were based here helping win that damned war, but I heard all the radio reports of what the War Hawks did when they were helping put a full stop to what was left of the Übermenschen on the Continent. I didn't learn of their work against Master Gellert's people until I actually studied that here."

"General Raeburn was a professor?" Victory asked.

"Yes," Dumbledore affirmed. "Dean was the first special guest lecturer at the Institute of Sorcery and Magic for their Studies of Normal Peoples courses. She started the tradition at that school when it came to getting actual muggles there to teach all the students everything about normal society. She was later replaced by a commander from HMS _Invincible_ who got saved after she was sunk at Jutland thanks to the crew of HMCS _Sundown_." At Victory's understanding nod — she had heard all the tales of the sea leviathans the Canadian magical battleships had been specifically built to deal with, though she had yet to get the chance to meet any of those battleships — the headmaster took a sherbet lemon and slipped it into his mouth before he gazed at his deputy. "You attended that course when you were at the Institute getting your transfiguration mastery, I believe."

"A summer adult indoctrination, complete with time-turners that allowed me to do a full year's course in a month," McGonagall said. "The man in charge of it at the time was a charming German officer. Don't recall his name. He'd been aboard _Bismarck_ when she was sunk. He was there when Professor Chennalton died after he rescued the gun crew from _Argo_ 's aft turret."

"One good thing, I think."

"What's that?" Dumbledore asked Victory.

The man-of-war gave the two magicals a knowing look. "You both realize that statute of yours is pretty much finished, don't you?" she asked, keeping her voice tender as she knew that the whole idea of keeping magicals separated from normals was something that was seen as quite paramount among the former group even if the advances in technology and social thought among the latter group would pretty much prevent any massive outbursts of rhabdophobia anytime in the future.

"I've realized it for years," Dumbledore lamented as McGonagall shook her head. "Especially after the mass attacks began sometime before Negi Springfield made his discovery at Watari-shima. Much that I am quite frightened deep down of what some people's reactions would be once the Queen decides the time has finally come to revoke the Magical Royal Proclamation of 1692, it is coming. Far too many people know the secret now. I'm happy to see that most muggles in Britain and elsewhere are quite accepting of magicals as a whole." His eyes twinkled. "Heather's influence most of all, I would believe." As Victory laughed and McGonagall tittered, he shrugged. "The Queen will decide what is best for us all in the end, Vicky. She has that power over us. I'm grateful that she and her ancestors all the way to King William and Queen Mary understood our fears and did their best to accommodate things even though there have been forces on both sides that have pushed matters..."

"At least the latest sassenach who could have pushed things from our side of the line was dealt with," McGonagall muttered...

...before everyone perked on hearing a shocked chorus of screams and shouts from the direction of the main courtyard. "What the devil is that?!" Victory demanded as they got up and moved to step out of the office to see what was going on.

The three quickly descended to the main reception hall, where a considerable crowd of students and a couple professors now seemed to cower from a smirking blonde woman with blue-green eyes in the modified grey-and-black dress uniform of a German mountain infantry soldier. Seeing one of his prize transfiguration students alive and well even with the much different magical aura marking her as one of that race of biological androids who had been enslaved by the Niphentaxians over the last century and had been liberated nine months ago by Moroboshi Ataru and his sister Moroboshi Negako, he could only nod at this gift of the Fates. Of course, given her position as head of the Fourth Battalion of the Schwarze Mädchen, the native of Knottingley in West Yorkshire hadn't come alone; two of her company commanders came with her, including the only part-Chinese member of the group, Major Jade Xìyù Speer of Mannheim in Baden-Württemberg. "Jessica!" Dumbledore called.

Everyone gazed hopefully as the man who had bested these women's old leader in battle at the Gates of Nurmengard came over to them, accompanied by his deputy and the most well-known and most respected of Britain's shipgirl corps. They then staggered on seeing the aged headmaster come over to accept Jessica Gibbon's warm embrace. "Hey, Professor!" the Yorkshire native called out as many people gaped in shock on seeing such behaviour. "I told you we couldn't die!"

"There's the Gryffindor I remember!" he said before accepting the embrace of Major Cara Walthari of Mariano Comense in northern Lombardy close to the border with Switzerland. "How are you, Cara?! Oh! I see you got the Pope's present!"

"Not to mention the one from Presidente Roosevelt, Professore Dumbledore!" the brown-haired Italian beauty with the dark brown eyes said, a blush crossing her cheeks as she waved to two of her considerable number of ribbons over her pocket. One of which was a gold-trimmed red ribbon and the one beside it being a white-trimmed crimson ribbon. "I only did what was right and proper when it came to those treasures I helped Professore Jones get out of Monte Casino!"

"His Holiness and His Excellency had different opinions, Cara! As did Indiana himself!" Dumbledore declared with a twinkle in his eyes and a jovial voice before he turned and bowed his head politely to Jade, who returned that greeting with her own bowed head and clicking her heels together as she braced herself to attention. "Mistress Jade, it is a delight to see that you also survived as well. I'm sure your former employers in Gringotts are also quite overjoyed at what happened."

"You are too kind, Freiherr Dumbledore," the classically Oriental beauty with the Western blue eyes said as she clasped her hands behind her back, a knowing smile crossing her face. As Jessica and Cara exchanged a knowing look, the daughter of a German advisor to the then just-created Republic of China added, "Indeed, Großmeister des Goldes Ragnok was quite surprised when I visited the branch at Diagon to get a blood test done. It produced a surprising result."

"What surprising result, Major?" McGonagall asked.

Jessica smiled. "I present to you the new Burggräfin von Mull," she said before her cheeks reddened as she realized that she was in the United Kingdom and not Germany. "Sorry! I mean the Viscountess of Mull."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"You're related to the _**McKinnons**_?!"

That was a white-faced McGonagall. As students nearby gasped before they started to hiss and whisper to each other — given that all magical members of the Most Noble House of McKinnon of Mull had been killed for their harsh opposition to Voldemort, the chances of someone actually claiming that seat was far to the left of "nil" — the commander of the Fourth Battalion's company of magical pioneers and engineers shrugged. "It shocked me as well, Frau Professor," she said as people like Draco Malfoy and his friends exchanged stunned looks while they considered how their parents would react to having someone like Jade Speer take up that seat in the Wizengamot. "As far as I knew, Papa's family were all Badener!"

"Well, at least something of that family survived," Neville Longbottom noted.

Jessica looked over before her eyes narrowed. "You're Augusta Wilde's and Sneugle Longbottom's grandson, right?" she asked as she approached the scion of the Longbottoms of Holdenhurst, which made him tense as his more-than-understandable fear of confronting one of the infamous _**Schwarze Mädchen**_ who had terrorized all of Europe during Grindelwald's War made him want to flee from the scene as quick as he could move...before Harry Potter's and Hermione Granger's hands landed on his shoulder to help steady their friend. Seeing that, the commander of the Fourth Battalion nodded in approval.

"Er...ah, y-yes, Mistress Jessica..." Neville sputtered.

Noting that, Jessica smiled. "How'd you like a present?"

That made him blink. "A present?"

His grandmother's old classmate turned away, emitting a shrill whistle with her fingers. That heralded a chill as ghostly vapours rose up from the floor, making many students tense as they recalled what had happened not two days before when their most famous schoolmate learned the truth of what had befallen his godfather. A shroud-like dome of energy then formed close to Jessica's feet, which then melted to reveal a still woman on a stretcher. « _ **As you requested, Lady Jessica**_ ,» a ghostly voice declared as Neville's eyes locked on who was there before his jaw dropped in shock on recognizing who this was. « _ **She will never harm neither you nor your family again, Young Lord Neville. Punishment has been delivered.**_ »

Dumbledore gaped. " _ **Bellatrix Lestrange**_...?!"

As cries of shock and hissed comments escaped the others in the room, Jessica gave the headmaster a wry smirk. "You might as well call her 'Bellatrix Black' now, Professor. Or would that be 'Dowager Bellatrix Lestrange'? I never understood how that worked!" Shrugging as Dumbledore shook his head in amusement at that show of distraction — even if she was quite the competent magical warrior, Jessica Gibbon was also a non-repentant boy-chaser even for a Depression-era woman — she then gazed on the dozing woman by her feet. "She survived with her magic intact even when her Dark Mark was mulched when Negako-sensei got rid of that idiot Riddle. Her husband and brother-in-law didn't. Since she's partially responsible for putting Neville's parents in the healer's cockpit ten years ago which forced Gussie to raise him where that idiot Algeron could get his hands on the poor lad all the time, he deserves to have a say as to what happens to her now, doesn't he?"

Neville gaped, then he gazed on the woman he had been raised to hate above all others. Seeing how peaceful yet nearly lifeless she looked, he then blinked before gazing at Hermione. "You read the Laws of Gonebren, didn't you?"

"I did," the dentist's daughter declared, which made people look at her.

"What did you learn, Miss Granger?" Severus Snape asked.

Hermione took a deep breath. "If someone is placed in gaol at Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren, the Hollows have sole discretion in determining their fate unless the Queen grants Her Mercy to the prisoner. Given what just happened to a lot of Voldemort's people..." — she ignored the automatic flinches and wary looks from many of the people around her on saying that man's battle-name — "...if Dowager Lady Lestrange is alive and with her magic intact and was allowed to be released from gaol, she is seen as having answered for her crimes. As to how that could have happened, Professor, I can't say. From what I've read, she was one of the most passionate supporters of Voldemort's cause." Again, she ignored all the flinches and jerks from people around her, which earned them curious looks from Jessica and Cara while Jade's eyes narrowed in confusion.

Dumbledore noted those reactions from the three visiting witches. "Tom Riddle's battle-name was placed under a Taboo by one of his supporters who infiltrated the Ministry of Magic, ladies," he explained, which made Jessica and her subordinates nod in understanding. "Doing such ultimately allowed his fighters to quickly focus on those who didn't 'respect' him so they could be killed off. People call him 'You Know Who' and other such terms even to this day because of that."

"We heard that he cursed one of the classes that forced you to get a new defence teacher every year for the past couple of decades, Freiherr," Jade added. "If you want, I can look at the classroom to see if this ranzigblut schweinehunde left some sort of 'parting present' to hurt future students. People need to know how to defend themselves, especially these days."

"Good point," Jessica noted.

"That would be appreciated, Jade," Dumbledore mused...

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the carrier dorms, Wednesday 24 May, after dawn (Scotland time: Tuesday 23 May, an hour before midnight)...**_

"Osu, Kanako-nē..."

"Ohayō, Suzue. Yoiko-san, are you awake...?"

A grunt escaped the seventh carrier of Operation Z as she slowly picked herself off the futon that had been spread between the two Shōkaku-class armoured carriers' beds. "Very much so, Kanako-san," Yonaga stated as she felt her internal radar click on and scan over the area. "My thanks for allowing me to stay here last night. I was in no mood to travel back by train to Sasebo and I didn't wish to bother Jane-san or any of her friends for a portkey to get me there."

Both smaller carriers chuckled. "Well, at least you benefited a lot from working with those girls, Yoiko," Zuikaku stated as she gazed upon the stylish grey sports bra and dark panties covering the larger carrier's quite-muscled body. "It's not Victoria's Secret, but you're a hell of a lot better dressed under your clothes than any of us based here, even the Americans."

"Actually, these sets were from that particular shop, Suzue-san," Yonaga reported, which made the other carriers gape at her. "The location at the Eaton Centre in Toronto have nimmibs on their staff. When Erin-san brought me there to get rid of the sarashi and the fundoshi, they contacted a clothier in the magical quarter of Québec City to make special orders, not just for myself but for my sisters. I'll give them their sets as soon as I can get them from my kit back in Sasebo."

Zuikaku mock-wailed. "Ah! Why'd you forget us?!"

"Suzue!" Shōkaku moaned.

"I didn't forget you," Yonaga stated as she secured her kimono before slipping on her hakama. "Family comes first, though."

"True..." A knock echoed from the door. "Enter!" Zuikaku called out.

The door slid open to reveal the second of the Pennsylvania-class battleships. "Good morning, ladies," Arizona called out as she tried not to stretch herself or yawn. She and her sister had stayed with Iowa last night. "Lovely day."

"So says the girl who just got turned into a missile battleship," Zuikaku quipped.

That earned her a chuckle from the copper-haired namesake of the Canyon State. "Oh, it's not fun and games, Commander. My whole crew has to leap forward several generations of technical knowledge to properly work in my new equipment and use it wisely. It's a miracle in and of itself that I can still basically function. With the chief's return last night, at least my engineers are starting to understand things about diesels and gas turbines. But as to the weapons, sensors and aircraft..."

"It comes with time and a lot of practice, Sonia-san," Yonaga advised as she moved to slip on her basic armour plating on her shins and forearms under her clothes. "My crew had quite the learning curve to experience themselves. I didn't get all the modern gear into me until a month after I met Patricia-san near Wrangel Island, when she escorted me to the Nanisivik facility for the upgrades. Fortunately, there were the benefit of time turners to allow the crew to train themselves."

"When they were still human, you mean," Zuikaku noted. "You are pretty lucky, Yoiko."

"I don't revel in such, Suzue-san."

"Wise," Arizona noted...

...then she perked as her new AN/SPS-49A air search radar and AN/SPS-67 surface search radar picked up several carriers heading into Tōkyō Bay proper to launch aircraft and do some scout patrols of the Sagami Sea beyond. As she felt both her faerie crew's awe and trepidation on using such equipment, the second of the Pennsylvania-class ships shook her head. "Some of the girls are out there getting some practice right now, it seems," she noted, making the others perk.

"Hai," Yonaga stated. "Yvonne-san is getting Eleanor-san out there to restore her proper sea legs back. Sei-san and Hiyoko-san are out there as well." She gave the battleship an approving nod. "Not bad for your first try, Sonia-san."

"Well, I was going to get a radar set on my foremast when the supplies came in and I could be fitted out. Sadly, your friends had other ideas about that." As both Shōkaku and Zuikaku winced on hearing that rather straightforward statement, Arizona waved them down. "If last night proved something to me, ladies, it's time to finally let the past go and get on living with this strange type of 'life' we've all been blessed with. I still hurt and I still feel guilt, but with most of my crew in peace..."

"Your karma still needs time to heal, Sonia-san," Yonaga warned as she finished slipping on the sponsons that carried her anti-aircraft missile launchers. "Come, my friend. Do your engineers feel ready for a speed trial?"

Arizona hummed. "I wonder if I'll impress young Sumie."

Both Shōkaku and Zuikaku chuckled on hearing that...

* * *

 _ **The Mendip Hills of Somerset near Upper Milton, that moment...**_

" _ **THIS IS TREASON! LET ME GO! ARREST HIM! HE'S GUILTY! LET ME GO...!**_ "

"Oh, do shut up, Barty! Take it like a man!"

Hearing that cackling voice from the dark-haired ghost that was now relaxing in the living room of the hidden magical manor overlooking the town of Wells to the south, the elderly man in the dated tweed suit could only snarl with helplessness as he glared wrathfully at the current lord of the Blacks of Grimmauld...and the gate keeper of the most dreaded piece of magical real estate in the British Isles in the name of the Crown. As the aurors who had come here with Amelia Bones to deal with the elderly Barty Crouch helped restrain the man, the current leader of magical Britain's main law enforcement group gazed over at the shivering, dazed young man seated beside a nearby table, being tended to by a faithful girl house elf named Winky.

"You IDIOT...!" Bones snarled as she glared at the elder Bartholemew Crouch. "What the HELL were you thinking of?! Actually breaking INTO Azkaban to take your son out of there, then keeping him under the IMPERIUS for all these years while your wife rotted in a grave on that blasted rock?! Did you actually think you could get away with it FOREVER?!"

"Of course he could, Amelia," Sirius Black said as he gave the younger Barty Crouch a concerned look before shrugging as he allowed the sword-sized Key of Gonebren to sway to and fro on its pointed blade tip between the palms of his hands. Right now, a baker's dozen worth of Hollows were moving to scour through the Crouch mansion to find where the younger Barty's paternal grandmother Timaea was currently hiding. Thinking of that self-righteous bitch who had been a close friend to his own late mother Walburga, the young lord of the Blacks of Grimmauld could only smirk as he imagined what that selfish, inbred fool's soul-replica in the painting hanging in the foyer at No. 12 Grimmauld Place in London's Islington neighbourhood would think of what was about to happen to her dear friend. "After all, he was the _de facto_ patriarch of the Noble and Ancient House of Crouch of Wells. Aunt Timaea gave him voting proxy in the Wizengamot when she decided to retire from public life, confidant he would do everything possible to keep the family on top as one of the _**Sacred Twenty-eight**_..." He sneered out that term, which made the elder Crouch snarl at that show of disrespect to the proper order of things in magical Britain. "Rather a pity Timaea herself is targeted under oath of vengeance curse by the _**Schwarze Mädchen**_ themselves..."

Here, he paused as his eyes twinkled.

"...who are all quite ALIVE."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"How's that possible?!" Kingsley Shacklebolt demanded as the elder Crouch began to sputter in mortal terror on hearing that the death angels that had been Gellert Grindelwald's shock troops in World War Two had survived the Battle of the Gates. "Professor Dumbledore saw it happen, Sirius! All of them sacrificed themselves to stop the Nerioites from invading Earth!"

« _ **Well, that charming Prussian cavalry captain had something to say about it, young man.**_ »

Hearing that ghostly voice, everyone turned...

...then the elder Crouch screamed out in helpless outrage on seeing his beloved mother now in the metaphysical "grasp" of a half-dozen Hollows, all of whom were dressed in what would have been common folk flashing during the time of the Second World War. One of them was quite a beautiful woman with honey-blonde hair and blue-green eyes, possessing quite the attractive figure for someone half her age. As the moaning Timaea Crouch vainly tried to pull herself clear of the deadly grasp of the transformed spirits who had the power to nullify her magic and make her experience things no Dementor could ever equal, Black shook his head. "You'd be amazed at all the incredible tales you can learn at Gonebren, old Bart!" he then said with a barking laugh. "Including what a certain senior undersecretary who worked under Minister Spencer-Moon decided to do to helpless normal people whose only 'crime' was that they parented children who decided they didn't want to have anything to do with our decrepit and dying society and volunteered to fight for a better one under the only man who seemed to understand their plight." His grey eyes then fixed on the tear-filled eyes of his late mother's friend. "An act that YOU perpetrated at the start, Timaea! Did you really think that with your own distant cousin over in Germany 'dead', you'd get away with it?!"

A helpless whimper escaped the very elderly woman. As Bones and her aurors tried not to do anything to show sympathy for what had just been revealed — with the forced ouster of Cornelius Fudge from the post of Minister for Magic, the high lords of the Wizengamot were now in a big row over who would replace him in the face of an unstoppable muggle encroachment on their society — Black then gazed over at his year-mate and the close friend of his own late brother Regulus. "Hey, Barty! You okay over there?!" he called out as he grasped the Key and reached over to gently squeeze the dazed man's shoulder, earning him a confused look in return. "Just sit back and wait, chum! The healers will be here to look you over very soon, okay...!"

"Wh-what c-cousin...?"

That was the older Crouch. Gazing at the man who had condemned him for life in Azkaban without even giving him the grace of a trial — which was something any heir of the Sacred Twenty-eight Families deserved to get even in the dark times after Voldemort's rebellion — Black smirked. "Well, to borrow the proper title for her in her own language..." he dramatically began before the smile slipped from his face. "Ihr hochgeborene Standartenführerin der Schwarze Mädchen und Oberste der Magische Reichsarmee Livia Frieda Freigräfin von Dietrich zu Schöneberg..." His voice then turned hollow as he added, "... _ **und von Crouch zu Wells**_." As the older man croaked on hearing that long title — as the now- _former_ head of the Ministry of Magic's working department responsible for international relations, he was fully aware of the old German titles once used by magical lords in that land before that country became a republic in 1918 — Black smiled. "Colonel Livia Dietrich, in other words. The first commander and later deputy commander of the Black Maidens." His eyes then focused on the moaning Timaea. "Who gladly vowed under the _**Sacred Coven Laws**_ to avenge the deaths of her coven-sisters' relatives here in Britain." That comment earned him a stunned gasp from Bones; as a woman, she understood THOSE ancient magical laws quite well. "Which her own wonderful coven-sister Freiedame Sturmscharführerin der Schwarze Mädchen und Stabswachthexe der Magische Reichsarmee Margareta Trudl von Hecht zu Gardelegen partially did when she murdered that staleblood bastard Benedict Fenwick — your mother's lover, by the way, Barty! — and all those who actually did that horrid deed. Which forced Minister Spencer-Moon to LIE to Prime Minister Churchill when he asked about it after Freiedame Hecht left him a rather damning letter about what happened at No. 10 Downing Street back in 1942." Here, Black shook his head. "Since they're alive, the Schwarze Mädchen have worked with Gringotts to learn their ancestries. Especially those girls with _**Hanoverian**_ blood in them! Which Livia happens to have, even if her family had lived in Brandenburg for well over a century!"

Bones blinked. "What in Merlin's name does THAT mean, Sirius?!"

Black smirked. "They have a QUORUM in the Wizengamot, Amelia..."

" _ **NO!**_ "

With a surge of frantic strength, the elder Crouch pushed away the aurors holding him down as he moved to lunge at the man who was helping move to not only destroy his own life and the standing of his family, but to also effectively wreck the whole of the _**Wizengamot**_ , which would gut out the whole Ministry of Magic and leave all of wizarding Britain totally LEADERLESS! As Bones spun with her wand to stun him, a pair of bony fingers snapped, sending a burst of magic to make the older man fly backwards into a nearby wall, denting it hard! "You stays put, former master!" Winky snarled after her target collapsed to the floor, assuming a protective position close to the younger Crouch, which she helped keep alive and healthy for years until the destruction of his Dark Mark thanks to the Earth Angel snapped the Imperius forced on him when he had been rescued from Azkaban nearly a decade ago. Though, thanks to circumstances not understood by either Black or Bones, the younger man had not lost his magic as many peers had days before...even if being freed of his father's control helped him start to recover his sanity. "Mistress wishes you to watches as evil mother is punished for what she dids to Mistress' nice friends!"

As the older Crouch croaked in scalding pain on feeling several broken ribs from that burst of power, Bones paled as she gazed wide-eyed at the younger man who was now the overseer of Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren. "She's here, isn't she...?"

Black smirked. "Livia!" he called out.

The aurors tensed, then they turned as footsteps echoed in the hall nearby...

...before a woman appearing to be in her early twenties stepped into view, dressed in the grey-and-black of German mountain infantry, an impressive spray of medals and military qualifications around her neck and her left breast pocket. "Guten Abend, Freifrau Direktor Bones," Livia Dietrich greeted with a polite nod of her head, her English almost letter-perfect even if the clipped tones of her native Brandenburg echoed in every sound she made and she was using German honorifics and professional titles. Turning to stare at the moaning Timaea, the raven-haired, dark-eyed native of the Berlin suburb of Schöneberg reached to her belt to draw out an ebony blade similar to the Ehrendolch that was issued to members of the organization that the Schwarze Mädchen had modelled themselves after in their formative years before the Second World War. The other magicals in the room — even Winky — seemed to cringe slightly as they felt the dark aura of power that cloaked that black blade, those on their feet taking an involuntary step back from such a weapon. Once they were at a distance from her that would guarantee she would be able to react quickly if either of them were hidden supporters of the stalebloods in this land, the alumnus of the Greifinswald Academy of Sorcery near Rügen then nodded. "Once I am done gaining my coven-sisters' final vengeance on this leicheblut schweinhündin, I will allow Markgraf Black's friends from Gefängnis Gonebren to take that refuse Frau Winky just dealt with to make him see what his actions have done to far too many, Freifrau Direktor." As the older Crouch moaned while he tried to force the pain away so he could get to his feet and move to save what was left of his family from this monster, she smirked. "You and your friends will be free to return to your duties. I am sure you have much better things to do than dealing with issues raised by fools who have no common sense, especially in this day and age..."

"You...traitor mudblood...backstabbing bitch...you won't...!"

Hearing that from the gasping man, Livia held up her free hand, displaying a glowing ring with the badge of House Crouch!

Seeing that, the older Crouch screamed out, " _ **NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...!**_ "

" _ **SIE SIND NIE MEHR AUF UNSERES BLUT!**_ "

That outraged scream instantly turned into a shriek of near-mortal agony as the ancient and pooled family magics of the Noble and Ancient House of Crouch — which the elder Barty Crouch had ultimately controlled as _de facto_ patriarch of his clan — was instantly ripped away from the man's body to become a ghostly humanoid shape hovering in the air for a moment before it flowed into Livia's body. Seeing that, the aurors sighed as they lowered their wands while their boss' predecessor collapsed into a boneless heap on the floor. As they all knew, only a magically-recognized head of family could make a declaration like that, especially if she had a properly consecrated Family Ring on her person. "You've already taken your sisters' vengeance on that woman, haven't you, Colonel...?" Here, Bones caught herself before she shook her head. "Excuse me! _Lady_ Dietrich?"

"But of course," Livia said as she sheathed her blade...

...then she perked as footfalls echoed from outside. "Excuse me, Mistress, but Mistress Linn is here for her prisoner," Winky announced with a proper courtesy, which made Bones gape before the front door opened, allowing a gangling taller woman with major's rank on her shoulder straps to come in, an amused look on her face. "Shall I make some tea for Mistress Linn?"

"That is more than appreciated, Frau Winky, but I have already had something to eat," Major Linn Heinrich, the commander of the Black Maidens Brigade's headquarters intelligence company, said with a polite smile and a bow of her head to the now-blushing elf, who was NOT used to being addressed so politely by human masters. "Livia, Rosa and Suzanne will be here to help your young cousin start his road to recovery. I assume, Freifrau Bones, young Herr Crouch there would be seen as exonerated for what he was accused of a decade ago given that he is legally DEAD to the world?" Here, she gave the leader of the DMLE a sympathetic look as her almond-shaped brown eyes twinkled under her specially-modified reading glasses.

Bones shook her head as Shacklebolt tried not to chuckle at the irony of this situation. "After what's happened all over the country in the last few days, I'm really not too sure of the legalities now, Major Heinrich." She then blinked. "Or is it _Lady_ Heinrich now...?" After the native of Northeim in modern Lower Saxony held up her own free hand to show her own Family Ring, Bones moaned out before she fired a grinning Sirius Black an annoyed look. "And you are...?"

"Freigräfin von Swinford," Linn answered.

"Vanessa Zabini's late third husband was Linn's several-times removed second cousin," Black added as his grey eyes twinkled.

"Indeed, I look forward to meeting the young Freiherr Zabini and see to it he is _**properly**_ taught in magical ways," Linn stated.

"As does Suzanne and Diana," Livia added. "And Christine as well."

Black winked at the leader of the DMLE while he tried not to laugh at the stunned look on the older woman's face. "Colonel von Meißen is seen now as Freigräfin von Droitwitch," he then explained, which made the aurors' eyes go wide. "Chief Mediwitch Stuart is Freigräfin von Clydeford. Sergeant Major Schultz is Freigräfin von Romney."

Bones moaned. That meant that five of the Noble and Ancient Houses of the Wizengamot were now under the control of the Black Maidens. As the leaders of any four of the magical earldoms or magical marquessates could form a voting quorum in the ruling body of wizarding Britain that could enact and repeal laws without interference unless an opposing quorum could be mustered to stop them, who knew what Grindelwald's reborn valkyries could end up doing.

Or had they already started to do that...?

She'd have to get back to the Ministry to do a detailed look of the Law Rolls.

"Oh, Merlin...!"

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Wa ashhadu 'an lā 'ilāha 'illā llāh muḥammadun rasūlu llāh** — Literally "I testify that there is no god but Allāh and Muḥammad is the messenger of Allāh", this is the **ash-Shahādah** ("the testimony") that is the first of the **Five Pillars of Islam** , the five acts all the Faithful must perform; **Zhar-ptýtsja** — Literally "ember bird", this is the Slavic version of a phoenix; **Sassenach** — Literally "Saxon", this is a Scottish insult for people from England; **Großmeister des Goldes** — Grandmaster of gold; **Burggräfin** — Literally "countess of the castle", this is the rough German equivalent title for a British viscountess; **Badener** — Natives of Baden; **Ranzigblut schweinehunde** — Literally "rancid blood pig-dog"; **Hochgeborene** — Literally "highborn", this is the German honorific for non-royal nobility; **Freigräfin** — Literally "free countess", this would be the German equivalent of a British countess; **Freiedame** — Free lady; **Freifrau** — Also meaning "free lady", but seen as the equivalent title of a British baroness, thus higher in rank than "Freiedame"; **Ehrendolch** — Honour blade; **Schweinhündin** — Female version of "schweinhund"; **Markgraf** — Literally "count of the march", this is the German equivalent of a British marquess; **Gefängnis** — Prison; **Sie sind nie mehr auf unseres Blut!** — You are no longer of my blood!

 **Wanko** and **Revina** are both characters from _Harry Potter and the Shipgirls_ ; they both first appeared in Harry Leferts' snippet #123 at SpaceBattles.

 **Sahul** and **Tasmantis** are the names of the continental crusts that surround the modern landmass of Australia and New Zealand respectively. During the Ice Age when sea levels were much lower, areas of both Sahul and Tasmantis (also known as **Zealandia** ) close to the modern shorelines would have been above water.

In my eyes, the **International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy** couldn't be passed and enforced without the acceptance and deliberate activation of the underlying magic of countries who wished to have such enacted as could only be commanded by a head-of-state (in that period, a reigning monarch) through some sort of proclamation which would be seen as magically binding on all the monarch's subjects, magical and non-magical alike. The British version of this is the **Magical Royal Proclamation of 1692** , which was the declaration by King William III and Queen Mary II that allowed the **Separation Act, 1692** to be passed by the Council of Wizards and be enforced on all the natives of the land. The removal of such a proclamation can only be done at the command of the Crown through another magical royal proclamation. Such an executive act's equivalent elsewhere would be a **Magical Executive Order** in the United States or **Magical Imperial Rescript** in Japan.

As an aside, it is noted in the third WOMBAT examination at JKR's official website that Their Majesties failed to openly respond to the Council of Wizards' petition for greater legal protection under parliamentary law which ultimately forced them to advocate for passage of the Statute of Secrecy. Given that the **Glorious Revolution of 1689** was happening around the same time frame and that Their Majesties had to also deal with a very contentious Parliament which had forced King James II off the throne in the final act of the English Reformation, I see Their Majesties' accepting and enforcing the Statute being privately done using the reserve powers the Crown still possessed at the time without consulting Parliament. In response to this, the Preface of the Separation Act contains a loyalty clause vowing that the magicals of Britain would always acknowledge the Crown as the supreme power in the land, with the Chief of the Council of Wizards (and after 1707, the Minister for Magic) administering the magical government in the name of the Crown. Thus, the situation concerning Cornelius Fudge in Part 8.

My ranking of the noble houses of the British Wizengamot (with equivalent British noble territorial titles):

 **Noble House** (Barony)  
 **Most Noble House** (Viscountcy)  
 **Noble and Ancient House** (Earldom)  
 **Noble and Most Ancient House** (Marquessate)  
 **Very Noble and Most Ancient House** (Duchy)

Note that the last group would only be used to describe the leaders of the descendants of the Founders of Hogwarts.

The Schwarze Mädchen were officially seen as a magical-only adjunct to the **Schutzstaffel** , the secret police of the Nazi Party in Germany. Thus, ranks for all the members were devised for them as follows (with NATO rank codes):

 _ **OFFICERS  
**_ OF-6 — **Reichsführerin** (Imperial Leader)  
OF-5 — **Standartenführerin** (Standard [Regimental] Leader)  
OF-4 — **Obersturmbannführerin** (Senior Assault Unit Leader)  
OF-3 — **Sturmbannführerin** (Assault Unit Leader)  
OF-2 — **Hauptstrumführerin** (Head Storm Leader)  
OF-1 — **Obersturmführerin** (Senior Storm Leader) (senior rank)  
OF-1 — **Untersturmführerin** (Junior Storm Leader) (junior rank)

 _ **NON-COMMISSIONED MEMBERS  
**_ OR-9 — **Sturmscharführerin** (Storm Squad Leader)  
OR-8 — **Hauptscharführerin** (Head Squad Leader)  
OR-7 — **Oberscharführerin** (Senior Squad Leader)  
OR-6 — **Scharführerin** (Squad Leader)  
OF-5 — **Unterscharführerin** (Junior Squad Leader)  
OF-4 — **Rottenführerin** (Section Leader)  
OF-3 — **Sturmfrau** (Storm Woman)  
OF-2 — **Oberfrau** (Senior Woman)  
OF-1 — **Frau** (Woman)

Once mobilized as part of the Magische Reichsarmee, the officers of the Black Maidens were given female format wartime rank titles, just like members of the **Waffen-SS** ("Armed SS") received:

 _ **OFFICERS  
**_ OF-6 — **Generalmajorin** (Major General)  
OF-5 — **Oberste** (Colonel)  
OF-4 — **Oberstleutnante** (Lieutenant Colonel)  
OF-3 — **Majorin** (Major)  
OF-2 — **Hauptfrau** (Head Woman [Captain])  
OF-1 — **Oberleutnante** (Senior Lieutenant)  
OF-1 — **Leutnante** (Lieutenant)

As for non-commissioned members, they were given roughly equivalent titles non-commissioned members of the Wehrmacht used at the time, but had the word **hexe** (witch) or **zauberer** (wizard) inserted in the rank titles as follows:

 _ **NON-COMMISSIONED MEMBERS  
**_ OR-9 — **Stabswachthexe** (Staff Watch Witch)  
OR-8 — **Hauptwachthexe** (Head Watch Witch)  
OR-7 — **Oberwachthexe** (Senior Watch Witch)  
OR-6 — **Wachthexe** (Watch Witch)  
OR-5 — **Oberjagdhexe** (Senior Hunting Witch)  
OR-4 — **Jagdhexe** (Hunting Witch)  
OR-3 — **Sturmkampfhexe** (Storm Fighting Witch)  
OR-2 — **Oberkampfhexe** (Senior Fighting Witch)  
OR-1 — **Kampfhexe** (Fighting Witch)

Shipgirls introduced here:

 _ **AUSTRALIA  
**_ **HMAS Australia (1911)** — Gayle Edwina Patey  
 **HMAS Australia (1924)** — Francine Heather Goolden

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **HMCS Cape Breton (1953)** — Elena Niobe Clarke

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Tatsuta** — Shimosuwa Tadako  
 **THG Chōkai** — Hōjō Chiyo  
 **THG Yayoi** — Kisaragi Yayoi

 _ **NEW ZEALAND  
**_ **HMNZS Aotearoa** (ex-HMS New Zealand) — Janet Te Aroha Green

 _ **UNITED KINGDOM  
**_ **HMS Victory** — Catharine Ann "Vicky" Nelson


	15. A Surprise at the Trischen Academy

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Erlkönigstraße in Hamburg, Wednesday 24 May, midnight (T**_ _ **ōkyō time: An hour before breakfast)...**_

"Are you alright?"

Hearing that concerned question, Bismarck perked before she looked over...then she smiled on seeing the blonde, tomboyish subgirl standing there, a large stein of foamy ale in one hand. "Ah, Heidi! Come over here!" the battleship called out as she held out her arm for the Type VIIC U-boat given the nickname "Brunnenkresse" by German schoolchildren to walk into her embrace. "I don't want to drink alone and you girls always knew how to be happy even during the dark times!"

The sub known commonly as U-556 could only smile as she sat on the bench next to the battleship, allowing the taller woman to hold her close for a moment. "You're bothered by what was said about Catarina, aren't you?" she then wondered before sipping the prized dragon barley ale served at Bierhalle Stichstock, one of the more pleasant locations in the port city for magicals. Given how good the drink was, no U-boat would go out on patrol without having a pint here for luck.

Unlike their counterparts in Britain and in several other countries around the world, German magicals had gladly accepted the concept of close working relations with their country's flottenmädchen with open arms.

Given how much local shipgirls always loved to shop in places like Erlkönigstraße...!

"Wouldn't you be, dear friend?" Bismarck wondered.

Hearing that, U-556 sighed. "Luisa, with all respect...wouldn't you want Rinnie to be happy in the end?" she asked. "How many good people, magical and non-magical alike, from our land — and yes, our cousins' land down south — have migrated to America to seek new fortunes for themselves? Didn't one of our Austrian cousins move there years ago...and he eventually rose to be governor of their most populous state?" As the crowd of magicals in the beer hall perked on hearing that, the subgirl nodded. "Ja, it's true, my friends! His name is Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's actually one of the more prominent members of their national conservative political party, the Republicans. Two terms as California's state governor!"

"'Schwarzenegger'?!" the owner of the beer hall, Marcus Steinhoff, mused aloud from behind the bar. "Almost sounds like a good magical name from down south. Wonder if he had relatives who went to Babenberg." At the shipgirls' curious look, the former star keeper of the Habitchen Heidelberg Q.C. — as was proudly declared on his vest thanks to that orange-and-black shield over his heart — shrugged. "It's their magical school. Not on part with our own Nibelung, but a decent school."

"And they don't produce a bunch of snobs like the 'big three' always do!" another man muttered. He was dressed in the field uniform of the Magische Bundespolizei, the German national magical law enforcement agency. With the golden two-star rank of Polizeimeister on his dark green epaulette slip-ons, Heinrich Düben bore the considerable scars indicating a man who fought against the Abyssals before Germany's nigh-impregnable coastal defence fortification system, the Heimatwand, was constructed five years ago. He bore ribbons of the Orden Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds and the Bundeswehr Cross of Honour for Valour. Seeing that earned him an approving nod from Bismarck and U-556. By Magical Presidential Decree issued seven years ago, the MBP was now legally seen as a paramilitary organization who worked with the defence forces of the Federal Republic during the current crisis, thus its members were eligible for bravery decorations.

"Did you go to Nibelung, Herr Polizeimeister?" Bismarck asked.

He gazed at her, then bowed his head politely. "Not that there was much of a choice after the war, euer Hochgeborene," he said with proper grace and respect, which made the battleship blush at being addressed by the same style that would have been used for her namesake before his promotion to the rank of Fürst. "All the other schools were ripped down by the Soviets or the Americans. Save for Rheinfelden; that school was just moved across the bloody river to Switzerland!"

"It was a damn shame, that was," an elderly witch muttered before sipping her pepper schnapps. "Much that I think we're not really ready to be united openly with the muggel, I honestly wish we never lost the Befreiungskrieg! What those monsters under Múrometsa and Bean did to every school in the country save that one by Worms...!" She shook her head. "Ja, Gellert was an idiot, especially to make an alliance with the likes of that muggel dumbkoff with the moustache...!"

Bismarck and U-556 howled with laughter on hearing that. "No veteran of the Kriegsmarine will NEVER say Hitler was NOT an idiot, Tante!" the battleship said as she hoisted her beer stein to the witch, making her blush.

Laughter filled the room, then people perked as the front door opened, echoed by a wind-chime that one of the U-boats who had done trips to Japan had hung near the door. "Guten Abend, Amélie," Steinhoff called out to the carrier who just walked in, dressed like her fleet-mates in normal clothes and not her sea uniform as she was currently off-duty. "Your usual?"

"Please, Marcus," Graf Zeppelin said as she sat down to Bismarck's port.

"No luck summoning your sisters, Amélie?" Düben asked as the other magicals in the beer hall sympathetically gazed on her.

Zeppelin groaned as she took her seat. She had spent the whole day at the summoning chamber in Mürwik hoping that her sisters would answer the call and finally report to duty. Much that Germany's main contribution to the Abyssal War was her impressive force of over twelve-hundred World War Two-era U-boats — added onto the nearly four hundred U-boats which served in the Imperial Navy in the Great War — any shipgirl who could fight was always welcome. Given how easily an experimental carrier like Graf Zeppelin got into service under the tutelage of the American coal-fired paddle wheel training carriers Sable and Wolverine — added to a deployment to Japan to learn under the Kidō Butai — getting her sisterships Peter Strasser, Ludwig Boickholt and Odo Löwe to answer the call was vital. "Nein, Heinrich...!" she said as she flashed the police officer from Emden a grateful look. "We try and try and try. Children sing their carols...and no one is listening..."

"They'll come, Amé. Give it time," Bismarck soothed.

The carrier flashed her a grateful look, then she nodded thanks as a large stein of beer was placed before her by a smiling house elf. "Danke, Frau Milli," she said, making the tiny creature squeal in embarrassment before she popped away. "You ever find yourself missing the good rāmen that Hoshie served at her restaurant back in Yokosuka, Luisa?"

"I'm missing a whole tonne of things, Amé," the battleship confessed.

" _ **SCHLAMMBLUT HUREN! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE HERE! BEGONE!**_ "

The shipgirls all perked on hearing that outraged scream bellow from outside, then they turned to look as the main door flew open. "You stupid, drunken old hag!" Steinhoff snapped as he drew his wand, ready to stun the snarling elderly witch standing at the entrance, dressed in noblewoman's clothing that wouldn't have been out of place during Unification in 1871. "I told you many times! You've no right to come here and disturb my patrons! Take your drunken, useless body out of this place right...!"

His voice caught in his throat on seeing three twenty-something women in the grey-and-black of mountain infantrymen standing there, amused looks on their faces as they gazed upon the older woman, who glared at them as if they were all dark demons no different than the Abyssals that had torn apart so much over the last decade and more. All three of the newcomers had the silver-trimmed black cross pattée of the first class Iron Cross on their breast pockets and the infamous "tin necktie" of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross around their necks, they accompanied by the "White Max" of the Pour le Mérite Magique. A quick glance to the leader of the group — who had a lieutenant colonel's twin wreathed "pip" stars in silver on her shoulder straps — revealed she had the Wound Badge in Gold set off to one corner of her left breast pocket. Seeing that nearly made Zeppelin's eyes bug out of her bridge. To earn THAT medal meant this particular woman — who had to be the most _**attractive**_ person the aircraft carrier had _**ever**_ seen in her life as a shipgirl — had to suffer severe wounds at least FIVE times in battle. Given how accurate magical memory spells could be, this woman couldn't have lied to earn such a decoration at THAT level.

Said woman's dark brown eyes seemed to focus like the rangefinders of Bismarck's cannon on the witch that just called her and her friends "mudblood whores". With a voice that was pure Prussian noblewoman which dripped with a waterfall of scorn, she then gazed upon her senior enlisted advisor, a woman with curly chestnut brown hair, green eyes and fair skin, staff sergeant's rank on her shoulders and a three-level "salad bowl" of nine medals atop her qualifications, which included the Wound Badge in Silver and the old "jump wings" of Germany's airborne infantry in bronze. "Frau Stabsfeldwebel, the Hofmeister has requested this ranzigblutige Esel be removed from his establishment. Would you please throw out the trash?"

"Jawohl, meine Oberstleutnante," the other woman said with an accent that was pure Wales, making the shipgirls gape.

The elderly woman sputtered in mortal fright before she was seized by an invisible fist, then literally yanked out of the beer hall while the colonel and the other officer stepped clear. As the older woman screamed in helpless outrage, the staff sergeant flicked her finger to send out a stun bolt forth to put her down. "Bloody hell! She stank with enough firewhisky to sink the _Titanic_!" she said as she and her friends removed their ski caps, then moved to sit at the bar to Bismarck's starboard.

"What did you expect, Enid?" the third officer breathed out as a smiling Steinhoff came over to take their orders. She was a major with almost-black hair pulled back by a hairband and matching eyes, her skin having a touch of olive indicating she was Italian as her accent also demonstrated even if she spoke German quite fluently. After three large steins of beer were produced for them, she took a sip. "Ah!" she breathed out. "Not like a good glass of decent wine, but just as filling!"

That made the beer hall owner blush at that compliment. Now having got the chance to see the blue-and-silver shield badge of the European Corps on the girls' right breast pockets, Bismarck then asked, "You work under Generalmajor Dover?"

The three women gazed at the battleship, then their cheeks reddened slightly. "Ja, we do," the colonel answered. "We fought her and her friends when they came over to the Continent after they got finished disposing of the Übermenschen. We must have made an impression with that firebird-possessed soul-eater if she actually wanted us to join the Corps after we got free of those gestation chambers the Rittmeister had us placed in after we 'died' destroying the Gates of Nurmengard."

The shipgirls gaped. "You're of the Schwarze Mädchen?!" U-556 demanded.

"The same," Steinhoff stated before he indicated each while doing introductions. "Oberstleutnant Diana Freifrau von Meißen, Greifinswald, Mistress' Class of 1937, commander of the Zweites Bataillon. Major Giovanna Freiedame von Ponente, Ercolano, Mistress' Class of 1937, commander of the Pioniertruppen of that battalion. Stabsfeldwebel Enid Freiedame von Geraint, Hogwarts, NEWT Class of 1934, chief adjutant of the battalion." He indicated the shipgirls. "Ladies, Fregattenkapitän Luise Gräfin von Bismarck, Fregattenkapitän Amélie Gräfin von Zeppelin and Kapitänleutnant Heidi Freiedame von Wohlfarth."

As the shipgirls all blushed madly at having those noble titles applied to them in the traditional magical way, the veterans of Grindelwald's War nodded. "Soon to head out to thrash more of those horrid things?" Giovanna then wondered.

"No, not yet," Bismarck stated before sipping her beer. "Amé here spent a whole day at the summoning chamber to get her sisters back. No suck luck. I'm helping with training new flottenmädchen at Mürwik..." Here, she sighed as Zeppelin reached over to squeeze her shoulder in support. "And still lamenting that a dear friend is with the Americans and not here. Heidi here just got back from a patrol around the Faeroe Islands to see if the North Sea Princess has set up some branch camp in the area. The Danes don't have much in the way of flottenmädchen to keep watch over their territories even if their magical security forces are first rate and the frost giants of Greenland are happy to come help keep the islanders safe so they don't have to be evacuated to the mainland like they had to do for the natives of the Orkney and Shetland Islands."

"It's rather a pity that no one's been able to get hold of a child princess like that Hoppō girl that Fregattenkapitän Yamamoto adopted, much less that Vrángelja girl that Kapitän Itō and Kapitän Chennalton found off the coast of Siberia a year ago," Diana mused. As the shipgirls perked — they had heard nothing of another child princess being found — the commander of the Second Battalion of the Black Maidens added, "Seeing that it made older installation princesses calm down like that one who's based near Darwin, it could help us find out what was the trigger that caused them to lash out at humans like that..."

"Beings like Hoppō are formed from the dead spirits of children, mio Colonnello," Giovanna warned as she gave her educational peer and long-time fighting companion against the Moskvá Mágicheskie Front a warning look. "Given how much Kapitän Itō always went after adult princesses who were trying to slaughter young children to create new installations both before and after her transformation, I doubt that the enemy will want to do that when they suspect they could be intercepted."

Her commanding officer nodded. "Ja...!"

People relaxed themselves as they turned back to their drinks. "Always wished that Hogwarts did what other schools do and stop calling their graduates' and masters' tests 'OWLs' and 'NEWTs'," Enid then lamented, which made her friends look at her in amusement. Complaining about all the many inequalities of her alma mater had been a passion for the Hufflepuff alumnus from Caernarfon. "Then again, given how arrogant the fools that ran that school were, right from the Founders' time..."

"We know some of the students who are in the freshman class now," Bismarck stated as she sensed Zeppelin's flustered look. Noting the carrier was now gazing intently at Diana von Meißen, the battleship tried not to smirk while she sipped her drink. _Oh, my! Amé's in love!_ she mentally mused while her command staff all tried not to laugh at the carrier's current state before she turned back to the visiting hit witches. "One of our friends in Japan was forced to adopt one of them."

"Yes, this 'boy who lived'. We've heard of him," Diana stated before she shook her head. "How could Freiherr Dumbledore be so STUPID?! Just BLARE out the fact that a _**child**_ supposedly killed this Riddle idiot when he was still in diapers?!"

"You can say that again, meine Freifrau!" Düben muttered from nearby, the derision in his voice apparent. "You should see some of their aurors. Always bragging they're so tough! After all, the son of one of their own actually survived that leicheblut schweinhund's own killing curse!" He shook his head. "Nein! Our own researchers in the Abteilung für Mysterien took a look at what happened after that thing was destroyed! That was young Markgraf Potter's mother through and through."

"He wasn't totally destroyed."

Eyes locked on Bismarck. "What happened?" Diana asked.

"That Arschloch Riddle made use of some very dark magical ritual to split his soul apart several times to keep his soul anchored to this life even after Markgräfin Potter destroyed his body saving young Harry," the battleship hissed. "They're called 'horcruxes' from what Negako told me about them." As the magicals in the room gaped in horror on hearing that, Bismarck added, "It needed Negako to get in there and use her spirit-breaker attack to fully remove that thing from this life!"

" _ **Horcruxes**_...?!" the elderly witch nearby croaked. "That _**lunatic**_...!"

"Lieber Merlin! No wonder the British had so much trouble putting that thing down!" Steinhoff snarled as he moved to pour a drink for himself. Swallowing it in one shot, he tried not to shudder too much as the alcohol calmed his nerves. "Damn! And to believe the traditional purebloods in this land still think he was a GOOD thing?!" As the shipgirls all tensed, he waved them down. "They're just like that idiot Stabsfeldwebel Geraint just threw out of here, ladies. Vize-Minister Grindelwald pretty much wrecked what influence they had over magicals in the land when the Magische Ermächtigungsgesetz was passed in 1933 at the order of Reichspräsident von Hindenburg. What few of them survived the Befreiungskrieg were mostly from the eastern territories. The Soviets under Múrometsa and all her friends rendered them paupers and sent them to Siberia for a time to properly 're-educate' them!" He shook his head. "She should have just killed the whole sick lot off!"

"No doubt, all the bloodshed got to even Svetlána," Diana mused, rolling her eyes in amusement.

People gazed at her. "You fought her, meine Freifrau?" Zeppelin quietly asked.

The native of Senftenberg in southern Brandenburg near the border with Saxony looked over, then her own cheeks reddened as the carrier's blue-eyed gaze seemed to burn right into her. As her friends smirked on noting their boss reacting that way — being Avalonians now, their empathy could pick out things no magical spell could detect — she then shrugged. "Ten times. That's why I got this." She indicated her Wound Badge in emphasis. "I still have it over her when it comes to actual techniques, but there was a vein of mesonium near her hometown of Chaadávo; that gave her magic to burn. She could even overwhelm Freiherr Dumbledore even if he has the Deathstick now. When it comes to mesonium particle count levels in her blood, Svetlána's almost as high as Heather Thompkins or Tsukiko-sensei. It's no wonder Gellert felt she was the biggest threat when he launched his crusade, especially after she got the ear of that Georgian lunatic who followed Lénin."

"That duel of theirs at Sevastópol' proved that," Enid wryly noted.

Others nodded...

...before the door flew wide open. "Luisa!"

Bismarck's head snapped over. "What is it, Liese?!"

A panting Leberecht Maass took a breath to stabilize her high-pressure steam turbines. "We just got a signal from Bodensee!" the tomboyish first of the Type 1934 destroyers blurted out. "They just spotted a new princess! A CHILD princess! She's set herself up on Trischen, at the old magic school that was there! The admiral needs a reconnaissance in force!"

Hearing that, the battleship snarled. "Let's go!"

All the shipgirls raced out of the beer hall, running at flank speed for the nearby Elbe to race downstream to the temporary military base that had been set up at the site of the Blohm und Voss shipyard where Bismarck herself had been built around the start of the Second World War. Diana watched them go, then she shook her head, leaving some euros on the table. "Get the battalion summoned and on hovercycles, Enid!" she snapped as she raced out of the hall, with Enid and Giovanna right behind her, they followed by Düben. Before the others could ask what was going on, all three witches apparated away...

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, that moment (local time: Tuesday 23 May, an hour before midnight)...**_

"So the elder Barty and Timaea are out of the way finally..."

"You seem happy about this."

Hearing that from Amelia Bones, Albus Dumbledore shrugged. "Those girls from Britain lost their relatives thanks to mugalophobic monsters who could have brought the War Hawks down on OUR necks if they pressed on their own goals while we were all distracted because of Gellert and his allies among the Nazis in Germany, Amelia. It was bad enough that Margareta Hecht had to do what she did. That Timaea had a hand in it...!" He shook his head, clearly outraged on learning those who conspired to murder DOZENS of helpless normals to try to strike at the Schwarze Mädchen had escaped the bar of justice for YEARS until Fate brought his old friend's warriors back to balance those scales. "As for Barty, he's always been a fool when it comes to our relationships with shipgirls as a whole. He would have supported Dolores' ideas of disrupting the command and control over the Royal Navy to see shipgirls killed, thus 'weakening' the muggles to ensure that we could restore things to the way they were before this madness started. As Reiko and her friends discovered in the Solomon Islands three years ago, that would have just perpetuated a bloody cycle that would have resulted in more death for no gain."

As the people in the room grimly nodded — the revelation of what happened to the souls of shipgirls sunk in battle had rocked the magical world hard and made many even more wary of such beings — the headmaster shook his head. "All those years ago, I watched a group of bright young women from across the Continent, all of whom felt they had NO future at all with us, join forces with Gellert to make a future they could live with, Amelia," Dumbledore declared with a voice that made the director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement/Acting Minister for Magic shudder on hearing how old the man who defeated the Black Maidens' master at Nurmengard felt. "I suspect that almost all who joined the Magische Reichsarmee felt the same way, even those veterans from the Ukraine who were Gellert's first converts. Few would ever have cared for Chancellor Hitler's demonic vision of the future, especially when it came to all those people the Nazis considered 'subhuman'. I'm sure most would have gladly arranged a nice 'accident' to happen to that man and his followers, especially the ones they hanged at Nürnburg after the war ended. It would have certainly spared Dean the trouble planning Operation: Phoenix Thunder."

The others in the room all nodded. It was well known on both sides of the magical security divide that the Protector of All Life had devised a "decapitate from the top" plan that would have wrecked the Nazi leadership in 1942. Such would have deprived Germany of the will to fight by forcing the leaders of the Wehrmacht to enact Operation: Valkyrie to bring order back to their homeland, allowing cooler heads to prevail and peace to finally come, ultimately sparing the lives of _**millions**_ of soldiers on all sides. Sadly, Allied leaders hadn't cared to try something so radical, which still weighed on Dean Raeburn's soul to this very day. Remembering that, Dumbledore sipped the firewhisky he poured for himself, then a tired sigh escaped him. "If only that dratted oath that monster Himmler tricked them into taking hadn't got in the way...!" He shook his head before he gazed knowingly on the man seated close to his desk beside Amelia. "Elizabeth surprised you, didn't she, Lucius?"

Lucius Malfoy returned his look, then he slowly nodded, a wry smile crossing his face at the irony of the remarkable situation he just found himself in. "Father was a first year when the Gibbon sisters did their NEWTs," the patriarch of the Malfoy Clan of Avebury confessed. With him tonight were his closest allies in the Wizengamot, including Malcolm Parkinson, Cyrus Greengrass, the elder Vincent Crabbe, Lance Goyle and Mason Nott. "He told me all the horror stories about those girls, especially people like Regina Mitchell. How they could weave in and out of muggle society so easily because Master Gellert chose them for their wider worldviews, thus allowing them to be able to hit places people raised in a magical environment could not guard against." A shudder ran through him as he considered what could have happened if the Death Eaters fought the Black Maidens if they hadn't "died" at Nurmengard. Much that he personally felt much guilt over what he had done when fighting for Voldemort, Lucius knew it could have been a LOT worse. _Praise Merlin for James' wife in the end_ , he mused before sipping his firewhisky. "That's what made Father willing to join forces with the Dark Lord once that man began to make inroads while they were attending classes here." He then shook his head, a mixture of emotions now flooding his heart. While his father Abraxas was still alive and now resided at the Malfoy summer home overlooking the Solway Firth in Cumbria, the man had lost his magic thanks to Moroboshi Negako. Fortunately, Abraxas had deferred his duties as clan head years ago to his son when he elected to retire from public life after Voldemort's fall. "He KNEW the truth about that man...!"

As the other former Death Eaters grimly nodded at that cold observation — like Abraxas Malfoy, their fathers who had been part of Voldemort's first generation of warriors had known the truth of the man's ancestry; also like Lucius' father, they were now effectively rendered squibs thanks to Negako — Draco Malfoy's father shrugged. "The removal of the Defunct Lords Act didn't surprise me, I'll admit," he said. "Still, some of the potential heirs that can take their oaths in the Wizengamot and serve as representatives of their families are my son's own classmates." As Malcolm nodded in agreement — he had never cared for that law — Lucius added, "Given the high appraisals Draco gave them in his letters home to my wife and I, I don't think it will be an issue as some of our 'old crowd' would warn against to their very dying breaths. Dolores' removal will make it easier for people such as Miss Granger to fit in when they become mature enough to take their seats in the chamber." He then gazed on the one woman in the grey-and-black uniform now standing by the window. "However, Lady Heinrich, the removal of the Prescribed Ritual Act took us all by surprise. What persuaded your commander to insist on getting rid of THAT law?"

"It was necessary, Markgraf Malfoy," Linn Heinrich stated as she gazed at him before she sipped her own firewhisky. "That law was so shoddily written that any minister serving the Crown, regardless of what his or her leaning might be, could point at ANY ritual and say, 'That's dark! That's evil! That's outlawed!' Despite our own similar worldviews, the main difference between ourselves and our old opponents from the East concerning that subject was that WE respected a family's right to preserve and protect those magical rituals they created for their own uses. If Generalfeldmarshall Múrometsa had her way, ALL rituals would be common knowledge, including the one 'Freiherr' Voldemort used to keep his soul bound to this life." She shook her head as the others scowled. Fortunately, the creation of horcruxes was seen as SO dark that not even traditionally "dark" families wanted to have anything to do with them. "Even rituals such as the one the late Markgräfin Potter used to save her son could be declared illegal. What could have happened to the poor boy given that the shape of that scar Riddle left on his forehead was the same as a standard 'sig' rune and he could have easily avoided any contact with that monster?"

The native of Northeim shook her head. "There's always been a strong mistrust of blood-based rituals through the Continent since the time this school was founded." As the nominally "dark" leaders of the Wizengamot all grimly nodded in agreement to that wise observation from their newest peer — Linn would actually call them "traditional leaders" — she shook her head. "All must be in Ordnung in my eyes," she declared, making Dumbledore chuckle on hearing that German phrase. "Especially laws people live under. When I woke up to the truth of the chaos unleashed on the normal side in the war after that Arschloch Hitler finally killed himself — ja, in many places, on the magical side! — I decided there had to be a new order of things. I didn't get the chance to 'live' to see such a new order come, but I'm pleased to say that it did come, at least in Germany. You people..." Here, she shifted her head to and fro. "I'll be diplomatic and say you're a decade behind us in that regard."

"There's such a thing as being TOO diplomatic, Major!" Malcolm protested.

Laughter filled the office. "I assume your people were in on improving the defences of that protective wall that was built before your warships were brought back as shipgirls," Cyrus noted. "Was Master Gellert involved?"

Linn gave the man an intensive stare, which made the lord of the Greengrass Clan of Mutuantonis in East Sussex remember the popular nickname bestowed on the Schwarze Mädchen Brigade's chief interrogator: The _**Nasty Nag of Northeim**_. After a moment, she sighed. "Ja, he was let out five years ago to add his expertise to the magical elements of the Heimatwand and make sure none of those abyssische Dämonen could ever devastate the coastal cities like they did elsewhere. It was kept top secret from the Internationale Vereinigung von Zauberern..." — the other people in the room smirked on hearing the derision in her voice when she mentioned the International Confederation of Wizards — "...to prevent a panic starting among our several neighbours out of fear of the Magische Reichsarmee being summoned back to duty." She moved to take her seat close to where Mason was. "He won't be allowed a position of authority, but the Abteilung für Mysterien has long benefited from his knowledge even when he was imprisoned. Not fifty metres from where my friends and I were frozen all those years..."

The others sympathetically winced on being reminded what had befallen the Black Maidens in the wake of the Battle of the Gates of Nurmengard. "It's a pity no one ever thought to ask Professor Raeburn to see if you did survive it in the end, Major," Amelia stated. "The Undying Lord's support for muggleborns has been known for centuries. Master Staff Sergeant Hecht was said to be a personal favourite. Surely people would have suspected something like that might have happened!"

"How did people make sure these Niphentaxians the Earth Angel and her friends from the World of the Forge just threw off the planet never suspected what happened to their 'slaves'?" Mason asked. "Given the size of Lady Heinrich's coven...!"

Linn chuckled. "Negako-sensei personally interrogated a slew of observers in Italy about that issue before they were sent home, Burggraf Nott," she said before she sipped her drink. "It turns out that when he got the bodies we're using now, the Rittmeister made it look as if the war wrecked all their observation posts; they had to be rebuilt from scratch when the war was over. All the observers active in Europe at the time were killed. No one suspected there were missing bioroids." She then shook her head. "Not only that, no observer was allowed to contact fellow observers to prevent counter-detection and exposure to local forces, especially after this Special Committee was founded by the United Nations to take control of relations with aliens in the wake of the event at Roswell." As people nodded, she sighed. "We were VERY lucky in that regard. Given that race's obsession towards all things Terran, they wouldn't want to do things that hurt us and make our society change in ways that would hurt them. It's a pity this Ōgi brat took over that planet when he did some years ago. If there was someone more competent in charge of that lot in New Hollywood, I'm sure they would have told the Oni to stay away from Earth. From what people who know of these Seifukusu understand, they wouldn't have condoned any move by the Oni on this world."

"'New Hollywood'?" a confused Vincent asked.

"Their worldwide capital, Vincent," Dumbledore stated. "They actually call it 'Lumukyō' right now in Miss Redet's honour. Though from what Ataru has told me, he strongly doubts that Miss Redet would consider it an honour at all."

"All because she saved this boy's life?" Lance asked before shaking his head. "Are people sure these Niphentaxians aren't magical, Professor? With the way this Ōgi lad behaved, I'd swear it was some sort of Life Debt situation!"

More laughter filled the room before the portrait of Armando Dippet perked. "Albus, Jessica is outside the door."

"Thank you, Armando! Come in, Jessica!"

The door opened to allow the younger sister of the leader of the Black Maidens to walk in. She wasn't alone. "My Heavens! Rosa! It's good to see you!" the headmaster called out as the Black Maidens' chief healer, _Maestra Sanadora_ Major Rosalía Fernández de Calderón y Jiménez de Córdoba — people knew her by the simple noble title " _Doña_ Rosa Fernández" due to her being a holder of Spain's top-tier magical award, Grand Cross Knight Commander of the Order of Asturias — walked over to accept his welcoming embrace while the men in the room rose and bowed politely to the native of Villanueva de la Serena in Estremaúra close to the border with Portugal. "I'm sure Poppy will be relieved beyond belief to hear YOU'RE alive!"

"Sadly, I nearly shocked poor Poppy into heart failure when I walked into the hospital wing shortly after Jessica and her friends came here to bring Señora Lestrange in to be presented to young Señor Longbottom, Albus," Rosa stated before she turned, offering her hand to Lucius, who immediately bent over it to give her a proper courtly kiss. "Señor Malfoy, your sister-in-law is in a very bad way even if her magic is intact and she can — if I understand the rules of your Wizengamot correctly concerning the competency of its serving members — still serve as her adopted family's proxy until a new heir or heiress to her husband's family is found. Much that she was a passionate supporter of your late leader, she was also subject to some mood-altering potions to make her a magical berserker as some of Tsukiko-sensei's trainers would see her as. The Hollows in Gonebren weren't nice to her at all, especially those who were created from the souls of all her victims in your recent little war. While I will never condone mercy-killing, I am now strongly of the belief that she will never really regain any self-thought."

Lucius nodded. "Nonetheless, Mistress Healer, my wife would wish to make final decisions concerning her sister's fate. While I won't speak on Sirius' behalf, I do thank you for what you were able to do for her. Bellatrix did declare Narcissa her primary beneficiary in her will as well as executrix; my wife has always been concerned about what went on with her. Of course, young Neville does have every right to claim his vengeance on her given what was done to his parents...though I'm sure that young Harry and his other friends will temper such given her current state of mind. What of the younger Barty?"

"Right now, in a state of total shock," Rosa said as she and Jessica took their seats close to where Amelia was relaxing. "He just got told the truth of Señor Riddle's ancestry, not to mention his playing around with rituals that do need to be kept above top secret, especially given the reaction many kobaloi healers I personally know expressed on hearing what Negako-sensei discovered about that man." She shook her head as a dark look crossed her very pretty face, which made the men in the room instantly tense. To see a _**healer**_ look like that...! "Linn, did Caroline pass on her report concerning Livia's cousin?"

"Nein, I haven't seen it yet. Why?" Linn asked.

"It appears the soon-to-be 'late' Señora Crouch has this wonderful zest for young boys. Preferably young normal boys," the Spanish master healer and the oldest of all the Black Maidens — she was an alumnus of the Tarraco Academy of Magic from the Mistress' Class of 1929 — tried not to hiss, her healer's oaths fighting her Avalonian body's inbred reaction on confronting anything that saw harm brought to defenceless children. As the others in the room either gaped in disbelief at her or snarled in disgust and horror on hearing of such acts — given how prized children were, the very thought of doing THAT to an innocent was revolting even in the eyes of the most conservative pureblood — she added in a voice full of ashes, "To hide her crimes, she sacrificed those boys to the Land's End Princess. That probably might have caused the incident at Tinworth Beach a year ago that required Erinsville's direct intervention. I've already passed it on to 'A' Commando, Albus."

Amelia growled as Lucius shook his head while some of the others looked ill as they imagined a respected witch like Timaea Crouch enjoining sex with underage boys. Much that Lucius and friends like Vincent, Lance and Mason had killed their fair share of muggles during Voldemort's rebellion, none of them had done anything of THAT nature to those children who had the misfortune to be targeted due to being related to muggleborn magicals or were just in areas that Voldemort wanted to wreck to effectively press on his campaign of terror. Ever since the Dark Mark on his arm was destroyed thanks to Negako, Lucius himself had spent a lot of time soul-searching about what he had done when he was younger and less wise to the world. While he had then been horrified and disgusted concerning how much muggle ways were seen as "poisoning" wizarding British society — without any move to control such a torrent by the staff of Hogwarts, who should have done their best to properly indoctrinate muggleborns in the ancient culture they had been made to join when they came to the school — he now wondered if Tom Riddle's use of ebony mesonium to boost his magic hadn't caused all the Death Eaters to become true sociopaths for a time, emotionally disconnected to the ghastly misery they unleashed on thousands during those dark years.

Thinking that, he nodded as he sipped his firewhisky. No matter how insane the Dark Lord was, the man born Tom Riddle was orphaned shortly after his birth. He had known about what being helpless was like before his own magic came to save him before he was invited to Hogwarts. In the times Lucius could recall Voldemort personally leading raids on muggle locations in the early years of the rebellion, he was surprisingly merciful with the killing curse when children got in the way.

Then again, given his alliance with Fenrir Greyback...?!

Weren't they supposed to have been fighting a "righteous war", after all...?

Shaking his head again, Lucius sighed as he tried not to scowl in self-loathing. _Some righteous war...!_

After he became a father himself...!

"Linn, when you finally deal with that thing, save your memories of it!" Malcolm then snarled. "We'd like to see what you do."

Linn sneered. "I believe my personal interrogation chamber at Trischen is still intact, Malcolm," she said as her eyes lit up in anticipation, As Jessica cracked her knuckles — ALL the Black Maidens would want to be in on such an interrogation if they got a chance — the chief interrogator added, "I'll be happy to invite you to show you how it's properly done. I've been practising on Abyssals my friends have caught over the last year or so." As the others gaped at her, the native of Northeim shrugged. "Most of them are mindless drones who are made to forget strategic information once they're known by their princess controllers to have fallen into our hands. None were like that one zerstörer Mädchen recovered thanks to our Iranian friends." As people gazed her way, she added, "Zerstörer Kisaragi. She was lost at the attack on Wake when the Japanese flottenmädchen began to press their homeland's control over surrounding waters beyond the Home Islands."

"Mutsuko's sister Kyōko. The one who's 'sinking' made Ataru write his letter," Dumbledore affirmed.

"You won't object, Albus?" Amelia asked, surprised by his deference to Linn when it came to the matter of Timaea Crouch.

He gave her a knowing look. "I am also aware of the Sacred Coven Laws, Amelia."

Grim nods all around...

...before a beautiful patronus eagle soared into the room. "« _ **Linn! It's Diana! An Abyssal child princess has taken over Trischen!**_ »" the voice of Jessica's sister battalion commander boomed through the room. "« _ **The Luftwaffe's zeppelin scouts just spotted her getting into the area of the potions laboratories. She might be trying to access the dungeons! A squad of flottenmädchen are on their way, but we need you to bring down the defensive wards you set up over the place!**_ »"

Hearing that, the chief interrogator paled. "Lieber Gott...!" she hissed before she placed the firewhisky aside, then raced out of the room, screaming " _ **EXPECTO PATRONUM!**_ " to send a signal back to Diana von Meißen in Germany.

Everyone else was on their feet following her...

* * *

 _ **The site of the Trischen Academy of Magic, an hour later (local time: Wednesday 24 May, an hour after midnight)...**_

"Still sleep?"

Hearing that question from one of the six To-class light cruisers who formed part of the fleet the Meldorfer Bay Princess called her own, the pale-skinned girl appearing to be about eleven or so by human terms looked up to gaze upon the older-looking woman whose sea equipment bristled with four twin 5.9 inch turrets. "Still sleep," the girl who called herself "Trista" in honour of this island where sparkles from Hanover, Hamburg and nearby places once came to learn how to use their power answered before she looked at the still being standing on a pedestal in the well-lit dungeon located near where the potions laboratories had been located; the child installation princess had used her own power to create a scaffold so she could gaze into the still woman's face. "Trista wants to play," she said as she ruffled the hair of the pretty girl who was asleep before her.

In the recesses of her still-developing mind — which had been fuelled over the last few years thanks to the residual magic of the school that once served as the primary place of instruction for young wizards and witches from across Hanover and several of the nearby Hanseatic League cities like Hamburg and Bremen — Trista knew this being was a specially-designed golem powered by mesonium and blood magic, modelled in tribute to a lost friend of an alumnus of this school named Linn Heinrich. While she heard from other princesses who spied on the sparkles that the native of Northeim was seen these days as one of the most evil people ever to live, Trista also knew Linn had been viewed by her peers as a true heroine, a woman who fought and supposedly died for the equality of all beings, magical and non-magical alike. Given she had been one of the favourites of the ghost who haunted the halls of the Trischen Academy, the young child princess who had been tasked by her "elder sister" on Azkaban Island to cut off the mouth of the Elbe and the Jade Bight hoped that Linn or one of her friends from the famous Black Maiden Brigade would come along and wake these pretty golems up, like others had been woken by Trista's fleet. It would be nice to have someone to play with to occupy Trista's time when she wasn't fighting shipgirls.

Of course, Trista had yet to MEET a shipgirl...

"Still asleep, Little One?"

Trista perked at that teasing voice, then she looked left to see the drifting spirit floating nearby, it the image of a matronly woman in her fifties, dressed in plain robes for a noblewoman of the Thirteenth Century. This was the ghost of Highmistress Kunigunde Welf, the founder of the Trischen Academy of Magic and a descendant of the royal house that had ruled the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg from the day it had broken away from the Duchy of Saxony in 1235 — the year the school on the island in Meldorfer Bay had been established — to the day their descendants of the House of Hanover were forced to abdicate their throne in 1918 after the end of the Great War and the establishment of the Weimar Republic. Trista and her fleet of cruisers and destroyers all liked "Tante Kuni" — as they called the first Highmistress of Trischen — even if they had been ordered by their friends on Azkaban to make war on humans. Despite her lingering loyalty to the Holy Roman Empire that her home state had been a part of when she was alive — which was now transplanted to the modern Federal Republic that stood in its place — the first Highmistress of Trischen was a teacher of the truest form, who was always concerned with her students.

Even if the only "students" at the school these days wouldn't truly be considered human by anyone's standards.

Then again, Welf had seen Trista literally be born from the magic of the island.

Even if this child affiliated with the depths of the oceans was a reflection of the soul of her school, she was of Welf's school.

"Highmistress Welf."

Trista and the cruiser standing beside her perked, then they turned...

"Friar Simon!" Welf declared as the ghostly image of a portly man in the robes of a simple monk affiliated with the Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, his body seemingly held down by chains, drifted into the dungeon. "Last I heard, you were still haunting your old house at Hogwarts! What in the name of Morganna are you doing here visiting me?!" She then gazed down at the confused Trista. "Or is it the Little One here who interests you now, Friar Simon?"

The man known to the people of Hogwarts as the "Fat Friar" — who had lived as Simon Ayles around the same time Kunigunde Welf learned her basic magical skills at Beauxbâtons — chuckled as he took her ghostly hand and courtly kissed it. "When one of my house has a friend who once attended this beautiful school of yours, Highmistress, I can leave the ramparts of old Hogwarts to come visit an old friend. And her current bright young charges, I see." He then smiled at Trista, whose pale cheeks flushed on seeing that kind, accepting look from the visiting ghost from Britain. As the To-class cruiser also flustered at such a stare, Friar Simon then gazed upon his old friend. "I take it you didn't get the news, Highmistress."

"What news?" Welf asked.

"Those of your school who donned the symbols of the Gifts of the Undying Lord to fight for the equality of all still live."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

If Welf wasn't already a ghost, she would be as white as one. "Linn is alive...?"

"And Robyn and Christine and Edith and Amalie and ALL the others of your school who joined the Black Maidens!" Friar Simon then shuddered as tears appeared in his eyes. "Thank you, Lord!" he whispered as he gazed heavenward. "I knew Enid would never do evil! Never! Forced as she was to take that terrible oath to serve that horrible man and his dark, evil servants of Satan to hurt so many! Thank you, Lord, for allowing the Undying Lord to save her and all her friends!"

Welf gaped. "Lord von Taserich saved them?!"

"He did! Enid's battalion are on their way here right now! So is Linn!"

Hearing that made the highmistress of Trischen shudder before she bowed her head. "Praise Morganna...!" She then blinked on feeling a hand touch her own ghostly form, which made her gaze down upon the child princess now gazing with concern at her. "Oh, be at peace, Little One," she then soothed. "Linn was one of my favourite students. As you know, she's the one who made Elsa here! Not to mention her beautiful friends!" Here, she waved to the five other girl golems standing on their pedestals in this small dungeon, all protected by ruby meson-powered preservation charms that had kept them intact and free of any form of damage in the seven decades and more since they had been placed in storage here not a week after VE Day. That had been done by the Schwarze Mädchen in their campaign to shut down the magical side of Operation: Werewolf and prevent a Nazi "fifth column" from rising against the Allies when they least expected it. Such had been a temporary thing to properly secure the golems created by Linn Heinrich and her old transfiguration teacher Professor Johannes Vogt; the intention had been all along to eventually find a secure place for such beings to let them live their lives in peace.

Sadly, the Battle of the Gates put a hold on that plan for over seven decades.

Trista blinked. "'Elsa'?!"

"Ja!" Welf stated as Friar Simon smiled. "Her name is Elsa Böhm. Linn modelled her after a friend killed by Bohemian magicals just after that war with that Rus farmer's daughter began in 1941." As Trista nodded — she had knowledge of human history both on the side of the sparkles and the side of the normal people, especially from the time of the great war that had been fought on the Continent in the age when shipgirls existed as actual warships — the highmistress added, "Linn missed her so much that she created this Elsa to remind her of her friend." She indicated the golem in question. "As she did for her other nice friends Ursula and Gisela and Irmgard and Monika and Marta." Here, she pointed to the five other female-form golems standing still in the dungeon. "Not to mention the golems young Johanna and her sisters love to play with all the time."

Here, she gazed on the To-class, who was now blushing a deep, stormy grey. "Rudi is nice to To," she weakly protested.

Trista humphed. "Trista wouldn't do THAT to Elsa!"

"Wait until you grow up, young lady," Welf warned with a twinkle in her eyes.

The child princess stuck out her tongue at the silly sparkle ghost...

* * *

 _ **By the boat landing on the north side of the island...**_

"Strange...!"

«What's so strange, Linn?»

Linn Heinrich hummed as she waved her hand in an intricate pattern, a scrying pentagram floating in front of her as she used her magic wandlessly to scan the complex layers of wards she had personally set up around the island in May of 1945 after the golems meant to serve both in Operation: Werewolf and in an earlier project meant to give intimate comfort to the witches of the Black Maidens were secured in the lower dungeons of the castle here. With her at this time was Albus Dumbledore and Rubeus Hagrid, who had been happy to come with the headmaster and the Black Maidens' chief interrogator to investigate what the Abyssals were doing here. Much to Dumbledore's personal delight, the lords of the Wizengamot who had come to his office earlier to discuss the changes of laws had also come to help out, though they were on the hovercycles that had carried Diana von Meißen's battalion to the island; Amelia Bones was mustering a duty watch of aurors to come help the Magische Bundespolizei with potential crowd control issues. That his fellow lords had come to Trischen hadn't surprised the headmaster of Hogwarts. Malcolm Parkinson and Cyrus Greengrass had spearheaded research into creating magical war golems to help defend people against the Abyssals, though their own professionals hadn't got anywhere close to making something practical.

"The ward structure hasn't been altered at all, Diana," the native of Northeim replied over the special communicators affixed to her camouflage field uniform. The distant hum of over a thousand hovercycles of the same type that Moroboshi Ataru and his sister Moroboshi Negako had used in their mission to retrieve Yonaga days before from the Bering Strait echoed in the skies over Trischen. Such noise was accompanied by the turbine hum of Junkers Jumo 004 turbojets powering Graf Zeppelin's reconnaissance flight of Me-262 fighter-bombers and the deeper rumble of BMW 132 radial engines which powered the several Ar-196 float planes that Bismarck could launch. "By the looks of it, this princess actually gestated herself here, no doubt fuelled by the lingering magic of the school and all the students who came to study here over the years."

"A version of the spirit of Trischen, ye mean, Linn?" the half-giant groundskeeper asked as he held his crossbow at the ready.

A curt nod responded. "Most likely, Herr Hagrid. If she tapped into the magic of the school, whatever fleet she created for herself would be fuelled by magic. Trischen is almost as old as Hogwarts itself even if it hasn't been an active school for..."

Her empathy instantly picked up a spike of curiosity from the shallow waters of the Bielshövener Loch that was the only deep sea access to the island. With reflexes that hadn't disappeared with the switch of bodies and over seven decades of cryogenetic storage in a mountain cave, she spun around, snap-drawing her wand to level it on the Ne-class heavy cruiser that just emerged from the waters behind the three magicals. As Dumbledore swept his own wand to bear on the newcomer, Hagrid looked himself, then he smiled politely at the silver-haired, tomboyish Abyssal heavy cruiser. "Well, if this is what magic does to an Abyssal, it seems to be a good thing in the end, Linn," he mused as he gazed upon the smaller woman.

Linn stared at him, then she focused her eyes and her considerable Legilimency skills on the just-arrived cruiser, who didn't seem willing to deploy her weapons and lash out at these sparkle intruders on what she probably saw as her home base. A quick probe into the being's mind soon revealed that this cruiser was yet another shipgirl spirit who never go the chance to be an actual warship that had been seduced by the Abyss to fight for them instead. Given she was Ne-class and had four visible turrets with three eight-inch guns apiece, the chances were good that if she had been a shipgirl, this would be one of the twelve P-class heavy cruisers once proposed as part of the Z-Plan. Seeing memories of this being interacting with the ghost of the founder of her old school revealed this was the darker side of the sixth of that class, who had been given the ship name "Stuttgart" thanks to a nation-wide Internet poll where German children voted on names proposed for ships of the Kriegsmarine which had never been named. She was also quick to see that this particular cruiser had also learned of the human name Moroboshi Ataru gave her and was always addressed by Highmistress Welf as, Maria Hegel.

"Maria..."

Linn's head snapped around...

...then she gaped as a familiar young man of about twenty or so, dressed in World War Two-era fallschirmjäger's field uniform, came over, towel in hand. A quick glance at the Ne-class saw her blushing as he moved to dry her off, doting on her as if she was an Olympic medallist having finished practice and he was her coach. Noting that, Linn tried not to chuckle as Dumbledore gave her a knowing look. "One of Johannes' creations, Major?" the headmaster of Hogwarts quietly asked.

"Actually, he's one of mine, Freiherr," the native of Northeim confessed, keeping her voice down. "But if young Maria there formed a sort of blood-bond with him when she found him in the dungeons, he will definitely defer to her first."

"Linn!"

The chief interrogator jolted, then she spun around again...

...before she blinked on seeing an Abyssal child-form princess standing there with crossed arms, the drifting spirit of the founder of Trischen now floating beside her, an amused look on her face even if she exchanged nods with her contemporary from Hogwarts. Noting the upset look on the child's face as she seemed ready to yell at the native of Northeim, Linn then gazed hopefully at Kunigunde Welf. "Um, meine Hoheherrin...?!" she began. "What on Earth is going on here?"

"Young Trista wants to play with Elsa, Linn," Welf helpfully reported.

"Linn made Elsa sleep! Wake Elsa up!" Trista ordered.

Linn's eyebrow twitched as Dumbledore tried not to laugh...

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile, on an island to the east of the Shetlands...**_

"The magicals have invaded Trischen, my lady."

Hearing that, the North Sea Princess perked before she shook her head as she contemptuously crushed the ghostly throat of the Dementor that had somehow reformed itself from the dark magic of Azkaban to try to consume the souls of the Abyssal warriors who had taken over the place four years ago. As the poor creature squealed while the tall woman sucked away its own magic with a ridiculous ease that would horrify anyone who knew about these soul-vampires, the princess then hummed. "Not surprising," she noted as she gazed upon the rigidly-standing Wo-class aircraft carrier who had passed on that report. Given the range this particular warrior possessed thanks to her ability to launch scout bombers that could fly over most of the North Sea, the Princess — she called herself "Isley" — was always able to keep an eye on what was going on that small islet near Hamburg. Not to mention sample the interesting delights that had been discovered there by young Trista.

"Did your scouts see the sparkle named Linn Heinrich?" Isley asked.

The aircraft carrier relaxed herself, closing her eyes as she concentrated, sending an eldritch signal out to her lead formation of scout bombers, who had put themselves up high to avoid catching a storm of spell fire; thanks to some of the older prisoners Isley had interrogated and killed four years ago before the corvette and frigate shipgirls from Britain and Canada had evacuated the aurors and other prisoners, she knew of the reputation of the Black Maidens that had once terrorized an entire continent. She also knew that the Undying Lord had gone out of his way to save those normal-born sparkles from dying after blocking off an attempt by the monsters of Nerio from invading the planet. Of course, one had to be TOTALLY insane to try to face off against the immortal Pomeranian who had teamed with the Great Beasts and the Praetorian Guardian to effectively wreck the Old Ones' control over Earth many millennia before. Given that many ancient beings did respect the End Treaty that loudly FORBADE any demon from bringing harm to any mortal with mesonium in his or her blood, there was no way those ancient and rotted creatures would DARE risk hurting the adopted children of lost Sagussa, sparkle and normal alike.

"She is there, my lady," the carrier announced, her voice crisp and with a strong Prussian accent. "Along with Headmaster Dumbledore and Lady Wanko's tall friend." As Isley chuckled on remembering the tales of the half-giant named Hagrid who was quite friendly to Abyssals as a whole, the carrier then added, "The spirit of Highmistress Welf is now convincing Major Heinrich to wake those pretty girl golems Trista found in that one dungeon. It appears those girl golems were modelled after some of the major's friends. No doubt sisters from the local troop of the League of German Girls the major was a part of."

Isley perked. "What happened to them again, Petra?"

"They were killed by magical Czech partisans who sought to avenge the slaughter of normals from the villages of Lidice and Ležáky by the Schutzstaffel in 1942 to avenge the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich," the carrier said, a torrent of scorn in her voice. "It was a part of a wider campaign unleashed by the partisans that was meant to force the Magische Reichsarmee to split their forces and give the magicals of the Soviet Union a chance to come in and crush Grindelwald."

The abyssal ruler of the North Sea nodded on hearing that as she shredded what was left of the Dementor who dared tried to attack her. Given her power and status among her peers, she had been able to learn a lot about the sparkles and their own history vis-à-vis normal humans. Reading about the power plays between various leaders such as what had happened during what was called "Grindelwald's War" in Britain — that was thanks to history books the last warden of Azkaban had in his office — had been quite an eye-opening experience to Isley. It also had come to totally disgust her about how stupid and decadent the sparkles really were, save for normal-born ones like the incredibly intelligent woman who had helped create that small legion of war golems which had been stored at Trischen to prevent a renewed outbreak of World War Two. Removing a good number of those annoying and arrogant beings would actually make the world a much cleaner and nicer place.

There were always casualties in war. It was sad and unfortunate, but when beings such as Isley were created due to the supersaturation of death magic propelled by the high concentrations of ebony mesonium left behind from the metahuman side of the Second World War, the sparkles had simply overreacted when the battle madness seized the souls of warriors such as her and tried to stop them in some vain hope of maintaining a totally obsolescent statute of secrecy that kept them protected from normal humans. Naturally, the Abyssals defended themselves and also went forth to find where the sparkles were based at to make them understand that they were no longer the apex predators they had thought they were for so long. People such as Isley and Wanko and so many others DID know who was the ONE apex predator Mother Nature had at Her command. And while the pale versions of that one great power — the "Hungry Ones" that had been sought out and destroyed during the world wars by the great battleships built by the sparkles of Canada, Australia and New Zealand — hadn't been spotted by the Abyssals since they went forth to claim their space for themselves, the dark echoes of their existence could still be felt.

That was the main reason most Abyssals smartly kept to the detente with Erinsville and her sisters...even if certain idiots pushed it when they used ebony mesonium warheads in V-1 cruise missiles in an attempt to strike at human cities.

Given those shipgirls' abilities to shift back to warship form...!

 _Does Yonaga have that power...?_

Isley shuddered as the carrier who served as her chief aide gave her a knowing look. Petra herself had duelled with the seventh carrier of Operation Z when she was still a warship two years ago near Svalbard. Even when her crew were still human and not faeries, it had been brutally obvious how much seven decades of being trapped in that meson-filled cove in eastern Siberia had changed the fifth of the Yamato-class. Once her true spirit had been woken when her crew had gladly given up their lives in seppuku to transform her into a shipgirl — to say anything of her being personally blessed by the Primal One of the North thanks to her battle with that idiot on Nóvaja Zemljá some months before — the Angry One had become a living nightmare to Abyssal princesses and other self-aware warriors all around the Arctic basin and even into the Atlantic and Pacific. Much that she didn't care to have that living shipgirl samurai come to Azkaban to take her head, Isley had to admire Erinsville and her sisters for helping Yonaga absorb the decades of technological advances that had changed naval warfare technology to make her a potent player in this great game over the control of three quarters of the world's surface.

And now with the annoying aliens save for the crystal-bloods gone...!

"Keep watch over the area," the princess then ordered. "Is there a sign of Erinsville or any of her sisters close by?"

The Wo-class blinked before she concentrated for a moment. "Yes," she answered. "Argo is sailing towards Trischen right now; she's just passing over the Skagerrakschlacht battlefield. There are no signs of the Hungry Ones."

Isley grimly nodded...

* * *

 _ **In the dungeons at Trischen, a half-hour later...**_

" _Wache auf Galatea_...!"

As a wide-eyed Trista watched, Linn Heinrich shifted her fingers over the still form of the replica of one of her oldest and dearest friends, causing Elsa Böhm to stiffens slightly before her deep blue eyes opened. They flashed briefly with the crimson power of the ruby mesonium that had been infused in her lifelike body when she had been constructed in 1941 before the copied memories of Linn's late friend had been downloaded into her, then her chest rose and fell in simulated breathing.

Watching this from nearby, Malcolm Parkinson was shaking his head in total awe at how detailed his new peer in the Wizengamot had been with all of her creations. While Linn had been preparing to awake her lost coven of artificial friends, both he and Cyrus Greengrass had taken the chance to view all the gathered records containing the schematics of what beings like this were like deep down. Unlike most normal golems, these ones had been true synthetic humanoids, as perfect in detail to the very last internal organ and external feature. Magically-charged artificial "blood" flowed through Elsa's body to help repair whatever damage she might have endured, that augmented by strategically-placed crystals of the Atom of True Life which would give her the ability to use magic and other forms of energy in both self-defence and in attack. Of course, as had been done when golems had been made in the past, a special loyalty blood-bond had to be forged between the artificial human and a true human "controller" as a way of preventing such a being from going out of control. Despite which, this replica of a former native of Sankt Vith in what today was eastern Belgium was as human as one born of a mother's womb.

A moan escaped the replica of a loyal soldier's wife — Elsa's late husband Günter Freidrich had served in the heavy infantry battalion of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler; he had been killed in Operation: Barbarossa shortly after his wife's murder, having died never learning what befell her — as she then looked around, quickly noting that she was in the dungeon where her friend/creator placed her in for her own safety. Her eyes then focused on the cute white-skinned child in the simple robes akin to wizarding school uniforms, who was now gazing at her with wide, awe-filled crimson eyes. Noting the other albino woman there — one appearing to be about the age of her human-self when she graduated from her gymnasium before the war began — Elsa blinked. "If you're golems, something really went wrong when you were taken out of the moulding unit."

"They're not like yourself, Fräulein Böhm," a man's voice called out from nearby, making her turn to stare at the elderly gentleman in the brightly-coloured wizarding robes — complete with pointed hat — standing nearby, speaking with a clear English accent. "The little one there, Fräulein Trista, is a spirit of the dark ocean depths which manifested herself somewhere in the North Sea, then came to live on this island, maturing thanks to the levels of magic that permeate the castle. She found you and your sisters and wanted to play with you, but didn't know the spell to awaken you." Here, his blue eyes twinkled in amusement. "Much less the other way one could take to awaken someone such as you. As Johanna there did to one of your brothers, Herr Rudi Duden." He gazed on the light cruiser with a look, which made Elsa gaze intently at her for a moment.

Elsa hummed as she walked over to gaze at the To-class, who instantly wilted on sensing a huge cauldron of power about to explode from the golem. After a moment on sensing this woman was clearly not the type to take advantage of her little brother like that, the adopted native of Sankt Vith nodded. " _ **You will care for little Rudi as he deserves to be cared for**_ ," she then declared in a booming voice as her eyes began to glow with the power she possessed. " _ **Nicht wahr?**_ "

The cruiser rapidly nodded her head. "She seems to have absorbed your nasty streak, Lady Heinrich," another man mused from nearby in English, which made the golem look over to see two middle-aged yet handsome men standing by a table, gazing upon the rolls of papers, parchment and memory crystals that her creator had gathered to store in this place before she sealed the dungeon up. "Don't be alarmed, Miss Böhm," the black-haired one assured her. "Linn's looking over Miss Wagner now."

Elsa looked over to where Ursula Wagner had been stored. She was now being scanned by a very familiar and beloved sight even if the uniform was much different than what she was used to seeing her creator wear when she was in the field. "When did they change the uniforms?" she asked as she moved to walk over and stand close to Linn, feeling herself being drawn closer to the native of Northeim thanks to the powerful yet slightly changed aura of magic she possessed.

"Some years ago when it came into vogue to try to stay invisible in the field," Linn stated as she sent a probe into the red-haired golem's forehead. She then gazed fondly on the shorter golem before she gently kissed Elsa, slipping her tongue into the latter's mouth to allow a droplet of blood to get into her and reforge the loyalty link between her and her creation.

The others seeing this all smiled on watching Elsa's body glow brightly for a moment, then she pulled away to allow Linn to continue looking over Ursula. She then perked before she gazed right, then she offered her hand to the ghost of the founder of Trischen, giving her a polite curtsy. "I'm really glad to see you again, meine Hoheherrin," the adopted native of Sankt Vith said before she gazed in curiosity at the ghost of a simple monk tied down in chains floating beside her. "Who...?"

Kunigunde Welf smiled as she performed introductions to Brother Simon Ayles. Once that was done, introductions were then made to Malcolm Parkinson, Cyrus Greengrass and Albus Dumbledore. Meeting the man who had once been best friend to the man that Linn Heinrich gladly sided with when the War of Liberation had begun, Elsa gave him a knowing look. "I see you actually bested the Vize-Minister in battle, Freiherr Dumbledore," she declared, gazing at the wand in his hand.

"Much that I now find it easier to agree with Gellert's general idea of integration between magical and muggle to bring all of humanity together again, Fräulein Böhm, I had no choice back then," Dumbledore said as he slipped his wand into its holster inside his left sleeve. "You have returned to a much different time. How much did Linn tell you about the real reason she had to secure you and your brethren in the dungeons here after Chancellor Hitler killed himself in that bunker in Berlin?"

"Die Endlösung der Judenfrage," she answered, her voice dripping with shame and disgust even if she had no ability to have affected the events that had plunged all of Europe into that mad war. "Not just those poor people, but the Slavs and others that monster and his allies loathed in their drive to seek out Lebensraum. Looking at it THAT way, I can see why those Bohemian magicals killed the other me and my sisters' other-selves as a way of striking out at Linn and her friends." She shook her head. "Of course, thanks to that magical oath to the Führer, they couldn't fight it off even if they did sense what was going on." She gazed once more at Linn, the urge to take the poor woman to a private place and allow her to vent out her own emotions at being USED like that now quite strong in her artificial heart. "So, I assume now that there's some other threat that is moving to strike out at the Fatherland again which requires us to be active once more. Your country as well?"

"All of humanity, muggle and magical alike, is threatened," Dumbledore warned. "As a matter of fact, young Trista — despite her looks — is a senior warrior who is supposed to bottle up the Elbe and the Jade Bight to prevent movement of goods by ship from America to Europe. Russia can only support so much and they have their own problems with beings such as them." As Elsa gazed anew at the blushing Trista, the headmaster of Hogwarts sighed. "Some are quite pleasant beings..."

A flash of phoenix fire then produced someone who looked to be a twin sister to Trischen herself even if she was dressed in a more plain silver dress-like robe. She wasn't alone; accompanying her was a certain raven-haired battleship from Japan and a beautiful buxom chestnut-haired aircraft carrier from America. "Professor Dumbledore! Your phoenix can be a little too insistent at times!" Saratoga then scolded before she perked as she looked around. "Where on Earth are we now...?!"

" _ **ACK!**_ "

Her head snapped over before she gaped on seeing her girlfriend's stunned look. "Reiko!" the carrier snapped as she bopped Nagato's shoulder to try to snap her out of another Nagamon episode. "That's rude! Don't stare at the...!"

"Hoppō has a sister?"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

Saratoga's head slowly turned over to let her stare wide-eyed at the young Abyssal girl standing next to some pony-tailed girl in the old uniform of a German airborne infantry soldier, no rank insignia on the top. Taking a moment to absorb what she saw there, the second of the Lexington-class carriers moaned. "Alright, when on Earth were we going to be told that there was ANOTHER child princess out there?!" the adopted native of Stillwater in New York and Camden in New Jersey asked.

"We just learned of young Trista ourselves, Dionne," Dumbledore stated with a pleased chuckle. "It appears she manifested herself with some influence from her counterpart on Azkaban to help plug up the Elbe and Jade Bight..."

"You are shipgirls...!"

Eyes locked on Trista, who was giving the newcomers wary looks. "Trista no be scared!" Hoppō then said, which made the other princess gaze her way as the light cruiser who was standing close to her relax herself. "Mama and Sara-papa won't hurt Trista! Mama adopted Hoppō when Auntie E and Auntie Yamato saved Hoppō from the meanies who tried to hurt Hoppō!"

Trista blinked before she shuddered. "Hungry Ones...?"

Hoppō also shuddered. "No! Nice kids on Unalaska once give Hoppō fish to eat, so Hoppō leave nice kids alone! Meanies didn't like Hoppō leaving nice kids alone, so they try to kill Hoppō! Auntie E and Auntie Yamato saves Hoppō."

Hearing that, Trista growled. "Johanna know any meanies here?!"

The To-class cruiser hummed. "Only one To knows of was one off Land's End. Miss Erinsville got rid of her year ago."

"Hoppō...two Hoppō-chan...two Hoppō...!"

Eyes turned to Nagato, who had sunk to her knees and was now staring in sheer bliss at the sight of TWO insanely cute children standing close to each other. "Oh, dear! Not again!" Saratoga moaned out, shaking her head.

As Elsa blinked in confusion, Dumbledore chuckled...

* * *

 _ **Off the west coast of Trischen, a half-hour later...**_

"Are things alright there now?"

Hearing that concerned question from the one aircraft carrier in their midst, Diana von Meißen shook her head as she leaned forward to rest her chin on her crossed hands, her elbows resting on the handlebar of her hovercycle to form a triangular shape. "We've long practised ways to signal each other in case trouble starts, Amélie," the junker's daughter who commanded the Second Battalion stated as Graf Zeppelin gazed intently at the castle in the near distance. The considerable squadron of flottenmädchen who had deployed from Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven to look in on events here was arrayed in lines of battle just beyond the shallow water line of the Steert, an underwater sand bar set off to the west of Trischen Island itself. "We always maintain low-link psionic bonds with each other. Linn knows to shout out through that in case trouble starts."

"Why hasn't this one acted out like others have, meine Freifrau?" Bayern asked. The first of her class of super-dreadnoughts had led out the ready response force from Wilhelmshaven when the alert was put out by Bodensee about Trischen.

The native of Senftenberg didn't move to correct the understandable mistake the adopted native of München made concerning her proper noble honorific thanks to her distant relationship to one of Blaise Zabini's late stepfathers. "No doubt, the war golems that Linn created with the help of Herr Professor Vogt attracted young Trista's attention first, Anna. Especially if the boy golems got the chance to have intimate relations with the cruisers who form part of her current flotilla." At the silver-haired tomboyish shipgirl's curious look, Diana smirked. "They were originally designed as intimate companions for people such as myself when we were out in the field. After a hard day's work in the field fighting for your life, would you remember to cast the proper contraceptive charms on you when you sought out a nice young man to enjoy some intimate time?"

Bayern laughed as some of the destroyers listening to this flustered in embarrassment on hearing that sort of subject spoken aloud. "I complement Professor Heinrich for such skill, especially if such kept these ones from causing trouble!"

The members of the Black Maidens who could hear this laughed...

...then Patrizia Gilberto, the dark-skinned Italian major who commander No. 22 Jäger Company, perked. "Diana, look towards the north beach!" the native of Augusta on Sicily near Siracusa who had been a year-mate of Giovanna Ponente at Ercolano then called out, pointing. She had been scanning the shore of the island with her own night-vision goggles. "There are two of Professore Vogt's golems on the beach there with a small division of Ha-class destroyers! You see them?!"

Diana looked, raising her own field glasses as the shipgirls looked over...

"Lieber Gott! There's not an ugly one in the lot!" Bismarck whistled.

A chuckle escaped the native of Senftenberg. "Naturally. Even if he was getting on, the professor still had an eye for beauty."

"Diplomatically put," Prinzregent Luitpold mused from nearby.

The other shipgirls born from the Kaiserliche Marine laughed uproariously as the destroyers from the time of the Kriegsmarine all scrunched their faces, as if they were saying as a group, " _ **We are NOT listening to this lewd stuff!**_ "

Noting that reaction from her fleet-mates, Bismarck smirked...

...before she sensed a pair of eyes lock on her from the direction of Trischen. Looking over to focus her own optics on what her lookouts just spotted, the first of her class of fast battleships then noted that one of the golems who had been playing with the small group of Ha-class destroyers was staring at her, a welcoming smile on her face and her free hand making a "come hither" gesture. Taking that in, Bismarck then noted the other golem was also looking her way, a delighted smile on her face as she made a suggestive wink. Surprised to see these beings had been able to spot the fleet of shipgirls now forming a battle line not so far from the place of their own creation in the middle of the night when there was next to no light marking their presence despite all the noise, the fast battleship felt her own turbines push her forward to the island. Seeing that, Bayern hissed as she moved to follow. "You stupid idiot!" the older dreadnought snapped. "What are you doing?!"

Blinking in confusion on seeing the battleships approach the island without escort, Leberecht Maass looked to Diana. "Um, meine Oberstleutnante, what's happening?!" the first of her class of destroyers asked. "Is there some magic...?!"

"Only the timeless magic of a girl's beauty," the commander of the Second Battalion said. "While war golems like Renée and Aimee — they're the two on the shore right now with those destroyers — are quite powerful, they were also designed for..." She then smiled. "Doing much more things than providing head pats for a job well done." Here, she reached over to gently rub the destroyer's head under her beret, which made Maass blush deeply. "They won't hurt them, Liese. Relax."

The other destroyers exchanged looks. "It's lewd!" Max Schultz moaned.

"Lewd!" Paul Jacobi groaned out.

As the others nodded, Diana shook her head while Zeppelin smirked. Meanwhile, the two battleships had been able to cover the distance to Trischen quite quickly, coming ashore and allowing their rigging to disperse. Noting that the gaggle of shark-shaped destroyers hadn't reacted at all to the shipgirls' presence — they were just enjoying the tender pats on their bows by the two beautiful girl golems now doting on them — Bismarck and Bayern exchanged looks. The latter then coughed to get their attention. "Excuse me, meine Damen," she said in her most polite voice. As the golems gazed their way, the adopted native of München smiled as she clicked her sea boots together, bowing her head. "Are you alright?"

Both women smiled as they stood to attention. One was a stunning pale girl appearing to be about twenty or so with centre-parted blonde hair and dark brown eyes; she was now gazing at Bayern. The other golem gazing now at Bismarck was a girl with freckled skin, hazel eyes and hair the shade of maple fudge. Like the other golems who had been placed on this island, they were in the old field uniforms of fallschirmjäger from the Second World War, with no rank insignia on their tunics. Sensing what was happening, the destroyers squealed as they shuffled ashore, nudging their friends forward towards the shipgirls. "Guten Morgen, meine Damen," the blonde said with a very friendly smile. "My name is Renée Schultz."

"And my name is Aimée Süssmann," the brunette added.

Both battleships nodded. "Are you alright, meine Damen?" Bismarck asked.

The two golems exchanged knowing looks, then they moved quickly to embrace the taller women, causing both Bayern and Bismarck to gape in shock, though they didn't do anything to throw the smaller women off. "Now we will be!" Renée said before she swamped the first of her class of super-dreadnoughts with a kiss that sucked all the air of Bayern's boilers, making the platinum-haired tomboy gargle in shock just as Aimée lunged over to do the very same thing to Bismarck.

" _ **LEWD!**_ " all the destroyers to their west screamed...

...before they gasped as the two golems seemed to glow bright for a moment. As muttered comments escaped the other shipgirls, the Abyssal destroyers all howled in delight as they bounced around in excitement, making the others seeing this perk in confusion. "They knew they couldn't bond with those destroyers as they were now," Diana mused as Zeppelin and Luitpold gazed questions her way. "So getting fully human ship-spirits to bond with them would make them happy!"

"I can't believe shipgirl magic is THAT powerful!" Enid hissed out.

"Is this a good thing?" Zeppelin asked.

Diana gave the carrier a sympathetic look. "It's getting there, Amélie."

The carrier slumped at that non-answer...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Erlkönigstraße** — Alder King Street; **Brunnenkresse** — Watercress; **Bierhalle** — Beer Hall; **Habitchen Heidelberg Q.C.** — Heidelberg Harriers Quidditch Club; **Magische Bundespolizei** — Federal Magical Police; **Polizeimeister** — Police Master, the German police equivalent rank title for a Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant; **Heimatwand** — Home Wall; **Fürst** — Literally "first" and often translated as "prince", this is the German noble title equivalent of a British marquess; **Muggel** — German equivalent of "muggle"; **Befreiungskrieg** — War of Liberation; **Tante** — Auntie; **Hofmeister** — Master of the (noble) court; **Stabsfeldwebel** — Staff Sergeant, the German Army equivalent rank title to a Canadian Forces master warrant officer (NATO rank code OR-8); **Ranzigblutige Esel** — Rancid-blooded jackass; **Generalmajor** — Major general; **Zweites Bataillon** — Second Battalion; **Pioniertruppen** — Pioneer troops; **Gräfin** — Countess; **Mio Colonnello** — My colonel; **Abteilung für Mysterien** — Department of Mysteries; **Lieber Merlin** — Dear Merlin; **Vize-Minister** — Vice Minister; **Reichspräsident** — Imperial President; **In Ordnung** — In order; **Abyssische Dämonen** — Abyssal demons; **Maestra Sanadora** — Mistress Healer; **Zerstörer** — Destroyer; **Fallschirmjäger** — Literally "parachute hunter", this is the name given to airborne troops; **Hoheherrin** — Highmistress; **Wache auf Galatea** — Awaken Galatea; **Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler** — Literally "Adolf Hitler's SS Bodyguard Regiment", this was the elite formation of the Schutzstaffel; **Nicht wahr** — Literally "Is it not true" but normally used as a tag question that could equate to the English "Right?" or "Understood?"; **Die Endlösung der Judenfrage** — The Final Solution to the Jewish Question, the code-phrase used by the Nazis to unleash the **Holocaust** ; **Lebensraum** — Living space; **DLZ** — Short for **Deutsche Luftwaffe Zeppelin** ("German Air Force Zeppelin"), the ship prefix for airships (and airship girls) in service with the Luftwaffe in this story.

The planned follow-on ships to **DMS** _ **Graf Zeppelin**_ ( **Amélie von Zeppelin** ) were never named, only designated "Flugzeugträger B", "Flugzeugträger C" and "Flugzeugträger D". The name **DMS** _ **Peter Strasser**_ ( **Petrina Strasser** ) was the proposed name for the second ship of the class, though the Kriegsmarine at the time never publicly named a ship until launch day. Thus, the names for the additional ships of the class were never conceived. The names appearing in this part are my creation, though I followed the general theme and used the name of airship commanders from the Great War as inspiration.

The **Magische Ermächtigungsgesetz** ("Magical Enabling Act") is named after the **Ermächtigungsgesetz** passed to amend the constitution of the Weimar Republic in 1933 that permitted the cabinet of Adolf Hitler to pass laws without the input of the **Reichstag** (the national parliament) in the big step the Nazis took in seizing control. On the magical side of things, the Magische Ermächtigungsgesetz was passed to transform the pureblood dominated **Zauberrat** ("Magical Council") into a more egalitarian **Magische Reichsrat** ("Imperial Magical Council") as Gellert Grindelwald's allies began to evolve German magical society with the silent support of Hitler and his allies into something that would allow the Greater Good to flower. In the years post-1945 thanks to the bloodshed of the War of Liberation, attempts to restore the traditional pureblood aristocracy in Germany fell flat thanks to overwhelming Soviet and American influences over the nation during the Cold War.

The **Order of Asturias** (in Spanish, _Orden de Asturias_ ) is named after the Kingdom of Asturias in what today is northern Spain; this was the nation that, in 722 CE, launched the **Reconquista** ("reconquest") against the Muslims that conquered the Iberian Peninsula eleven years earlier. It is divided thus (with equivalent Order of Merlin post-nominal letters as comparison):

MO1 — **Grand Cross Knight Commander of the Order of Asturias** ( _Gran Cruz de Comendador de la Orden de Asturias_ )  
MO2 — **Knight Commander of the Order of Asturias** ( _Comendador de la Orden de Asturias_ )  
MO3 — **Knight of the Order of Asturias** ( _Caballero de la Orden de Asturias_ )

Those awarded the Order of Asturias also have the right to be addressed by the honorific **Don** (for men) or **Doña** (for women); the term is a diminutive of the Latin _dominus_ ("master") and is best known as the honorific given to the real name of the famous pulp fiction novel character **Zorro** ( _ **Don**_ **Diego de la Vega** ). Note that _Don_ or _Doña_ can be used with a person's given name or full name but NEVER with just the family name. Also note that the standard honorifics **Señor** ("Mister" [short-form **Sr.** ]), **Señora** ("Mrs." [short-form **Sra.** ]) or **Señorita** ("Miss" [short-form **Srta.** ]) always comes BEFORE _Don_ or _Doña_. In those cases, the basic honorifics are initialized, such as **Srta.** _ **Doña**_ **Rosalía María Fernández de Calderón y Jiménez de Córdoba**. In conjunction with that, winners of equivalent awards of the Order of Asturias elsewhere like the Order of Merlin are addressed with the same honorifics, such as _**Don**_ **Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore**.

The **P-class cruisers** was a projected follow-on design to the famous "pocket battleships" of the **Deutschland-class** built during the years of the Great Depression to help re-equip the German Navy. Projected originally to be a class of twelve such ships, they were never laid down as larger designs such as the H-Class battleships were soon proposed. In the universe of this story, they were designated the **Braunschweig-class heavy cruisers** , using names of old states and regions of the Holy Roman Empire. Equipment-wise, they would be compatible to the Tier X cruiser **DMS** _ **Hindenburg**_ in _World of Warships_. Names proposed are as follows, with the human names Moroboshi Ataru chose, paying tribute to German philosophers:

 **DMS Braunschweig** (Catharina Anna Leibniz)  
 **DMS Magdeburg** (Christina von Wolff)  
 **DMS Mittelfranken** (Anna Regina Kant)  
 **DMS Lausitz** (Johanna Marie Fichte)  
 **DMS Meißen** (Gottliebin Caroline Schelling)  
 **DMS Stuttgart** (Maria Magdalena Louisa Hegel)  
 **DMS Mainz** (Adele Johanna Schopenhauer)  
 **DMS Unterdonau** (Rebekka Leonore Feuerbach)  
 **DMS Altenburg** (Charlotte Bauer)  
 **DMS Oberfranken** (Sophia Elenora Stirner)  
 **DMS Württemberg** (Marian Anna Strauß)  
 **DMS Pommern** (Catharina Sophia Ruge)

Also strongly hinted at here through Trista's friends are the **M-Class light cruisers** which were also designed as part of the Z-Plan. Basically meant as heavy destroyer squadron leaders, these six ships were also never built. In the universe of this story, they were named after German rivers and were officially designated the **Spree-class light cruisers**. They have no equivalent in _World of Warships_. Ataru also followed the concept of using German philosophers and humanists, as note below:

 **DMS Spree** (Johanna Louisa Albertina Hoffmann)  
 **DMS Necktar** (Heinrike Johanna Christiana Hölderlin)  
 **DMS Oder** (Henriette Marie von Kleist)  
 **DMS Saale** (Auguste Bernhardine von Hardenberg)  
 **DMS Leine** (Caroline Therese Schlegel)  
 **DMS Ruhr** (Philippine Margarethe Schlegel)

The nickname of the **North Sea Princess** , " **Isley** ", comes from Gaea's shorts in _Harry Potter and the Shipgirls_ , which appear at SpaceBattles. There, said princess is called the "Forsaken Island Princess".

Shipgirls (and airship girls) introduced in this part:

 _ **GERMANY  
**_ **DMS U-556** ( **Brunnenkresse** ) — Heidi Wilhelmina Helena Wohlfarth  
 **DMS Peter Strasser** — Petrina Strasser  
 **DMS Ludwig Boickholt** — Lili Boickholt  
 **DMS Odo Löwe** — Monika Löwe  
 **DMS Leberecht Maass** — Lieselotte Catrin Maass  
 **DLZ Bodensee** — Bertina Járay  
 **DMS Bayern** — Dorothea Anna von Pfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfield  
 **DMS Prinzregent Luitpold** — Therese Augusta von Wittelsbach  
 **DMS Max Schultz** — Melanie Ute Schultz  
 **DMS Paul Jacobi** — Paula Maria Jacobi


	16. The Crazy One Arrives

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka Naval District, on Hakuzaki-ch**_ _ **ō, Wednesday 24 May, noon (Hamburg time: Dawn)...**_

"Why do they not understand, Sister?"

Hearing that pained question from one of the beautiful girls who often flocked to the chapel at Saint Maria Christos Girl's School for spiritual guidance, Sister Kisaragi Maria took a deep breath. "Do not be angry at them, my friends," the half-American theology teacher and nun of the Order of Saint Clare said with a smile as she gave the students who came to visit her a reassuring look. As was the case for all the staff and students from "M.C. High" who had been victimized by Murata Eiichi, the eyes of all the girls present seemed dazed and unfocused, a physical sign that the powerful urges accidentally unleashed in them days before by the alien cultural observer who gladly risked so much to save them from many threats now yearned to roar up from the depths of their very hearts, propelling them into doing all sorts of things with any shipgirl who had the ill-luck to cross their path. "Despite what God's purpose for all of us in this dark time actually is, our Canadian magical friends are concerned about the amount of ebony mesonium in our blood. We know the horrible stories of what the War Hawks had to do during the Second World War, don't we?" As the students nodded, the woman who had adopted the religious name "Maria Theresa" shrugged. "I suspect they'll try to decrystallize the mesonium in our blood to something safer."

"Ruby mesonium," the school's last student council president, Karasuma Rei, noted as the two girls who had always stayed closest to her in more innocent times, twin sisters Izumi Raika and Izumi Fūka, both nodded in agreement.

"Exactly, Rei," Sister Maria nodded. "Hopefully, if they do that, they'll allow us to leave this island and go forth and do God's bidding when it comes to the Blessed Angels of the Sea who fight for us against Satan's dark warriors."

"God's Will be done..." many of the girls automatically whispered as several crossed themselves.

Before someone else could comment, a knock echoed at the door leading to the nun's private cubicle. "Hey, guys!" a familiar voice called out, which made the girls now visiting the theology teacher all grin in delight.

"Yui-chan!" Yanagi Akira called out as she got up and ran over to embrace the half-Avalonian, half-Niphentaxian cultural observer/high school freshman who had cared for all her classmates more than doing her mission for her father's people.

Arisugawa Yui yelped as the would-be track star — Akira always saw herself as Hyūji Makoto's "rival" even if Yui knew the native of Setagaya in Tōkyō also harboured a deep crush on her — nearly cracked her back with the force of her hug. "Hey! Akira-san!" the pony-tailed brunette croaked before she moaned as Akira's lips swamped hers with a tongue-filled kiss.

"Ugh! You didn't tell me that you'd be doing all that lewd stuff, lady!"

Yui gasped before she looked over just as Akira beamed in delight. "Ah! Rose-sama!" she squealed, which caused a chorus of delighted shouts and cheers from neighbouring cubicles, causing many heads to peek out so people could gaze upon the crimson-haired seventy-fourth of the Fletcher-class destroyers. "Oh! Rose-sama is so _**beautiful**_...!" she then crooned.

Johnston's boilers and turbines instant red-lined on seeing the looks on all their faces. " _ **HEY!**_ " she screamed as she tried to backpedal away at full reverse speed from . "Back the hell off, lady! What are you...?!"

Arms instantly wrapped around the destroyer's waist, making her freeze. "Don't be afraid of us, Rose-sama," a voice flecked with a mixture of accents purred into Johnston's ear, making the nominal leader of Taffy Three — who would gladly charge Abyssal battleships if the mission demanded it...yet definitely did NOT care at all to deal with anything that was in any way lewd! — wishing she could sink into the concrete floor and get away from these weirdos. "We want to help you...!"

"Kyōko-sempai!" Yui snapped as Akira and several other girls whooped on seeing that Johnston was now being hugged by Takanashi Kyōko, a sophomore member of the school's music club from Hiroshima. "Stop it! She's only a child!"

A confused look answered her. "You know we must be there for them, Yui-chan..."

As Johnston's face turned poppy-red after imagining what the students actually wanted to do with her, Yui snarled. "This is the reason, Rose-san, I told you and the others to NOT FOLLOW ME over here when I came to see my friends!" she snapped, which made the destroyer duck. The alien-born cultural observer/high school freshman had been allowed to visit the people she saved when Yūbari let her in on the secret of where the staff and students of "M.C. High" were housed. The nominal leader of Taffy Three had followed her to the old gymnasium. Having met the girl born on another planet, Johnston later elected to keep a close eye on her even if many — including Moroboshi Negako herself — vouched for her loyalty. Now seeing how much such was about to become something that Yui didn't want to see happen to such a brave little girl, she took a deep breath. " _ **Ky**_ _ **ōko-sempai!**_ " she then barked out in a voice while she forced her own empathy to project an aura that she hoped would distract the woodwind instrument player enough to give her real soul the chance to regain control over her body and stop this madness. "Think, for Lyna's sake! What do you know of U.S.S. _Johnston_ , DD-577?!"

Kyōko blinked for a moment before her glazed-over eyes seemed to sharply focus for a moment, then she shook her head as a bout of dizziness came over her. "I...!" she began before she looked down to see the shivering destroyer now in her arms. "Rose-sama...?!" she began before her face turned as white as a sheet as she realized what she had could have done. "Oh, Rose-sama! I'm sorry!" she screeched out as she instantly backed away from Johnston, waving her hands peacefully.

The destroyer instantly dodged behind Yui while also keeping some distance from Akira, who also looked as if she just woke up from some weird daydream. As hissed voices from others nearby indicated that whatever had possessed them for a time being was wearing off, Yui sighed. "Don't do anything that might provoke them, alright?" she whispered to Johnston, who blanched on realizing how close she had come to truly losing her innocence. "Now, get over to the main door!"

Johnston was quick to comply. After she took off at flank speed, Yui sighed before she walked over to place a reassuring hand on Kyōko's shoulder. "You okay, Sempai?" she asked in her most tender voice. "You didn't hurt anyone..."

Kyōko blinked before her eyes teared. "Did I piss off the Pope in a previous life to go through this?!" she hissed out before running footsteps brought Sister Maria over to embrace her. "God! Doesn't this madness ever END?!"

Yui sighed before she tensed on feeling massive surges of revulsion and shame escape all her peers as they began to awaken yet again from the hypnosis. The same emotions they started to experience shortly after she used her telepathy to make them remember what they had been effectively made to participate in before they had been evacuated from Kagoshima to Nerima a year ago. While she had been able to help them control themselves to some extent — and had used her powers, with their consent, to put them into more controllable states of mind — she had got nowhere close to defeating Professor Murata's brainwashing. All it needed was to hear one bell chime at a certain frequency and all the people of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High, staff and students alike, would engage in something that would ultimately destroy the hearts of all involved in the end.

"Yui-san...could you please put us down again?" Akira then moaned, her eyes flooded with tears as several others nearby broke down and sobbed. "God! If it wasn't Rose-sama, it could have been one of the Akatsuki-class girls!"

"I'm afraid, ladies, that won't happen right away."

Heads snapped over...

"I'sagh," Yui breathed out.

People gazed at her as they recognized the Sagussan term for a doctor or other type of medical officer, then they looked at the middle-aged man in the CADPAT uniform with the three "pip" stars of a captain over the corps flash **RCMS**. Beside him was a sympathetically-smiling master warrant officer with the same corps affiliation. Noting that, Sister Maria — who had come out of her cubicle to make sure nothing untoward had befallen poor Johnston — bowed her head in polite greetings. "You may be of the Royal Canadian Medical Service these days, Sensei, but your wands clearly indicate you originally joined the Royal Canadian Foresters when you came of age to serve your Queen. Your division patches show that as well." As Healer Captain John Alexander and Master Warrant Officer Isaac Titus nodded in turn, the native of Naha on Okinawa sighed. "I assume that when Yui-san here was able to communicate to the kanmusu about our problem, you were called into it."

"Our commando has been in country for two years helping the Eight Magical Commanderies keep the shorelines sealed from enemy attack, Sister. Sadly, we never knew of what was going on in your school until Miss Arisugawa approached Captain Itō Yoiko and Lieutenant Ashikaga Akemi — Ladies Yonaga and Akebono — in hopes of contacting Master Moroboshi Ataru to help you girls all get body-swaps and become like your friend's mother," the Gwich'in-born master healer from Dawson City explained. As the girls listening to this nodded, he added, "Given the sheer levels of ebony mesonium that our friends from Kyūshū just found at the site of your school, I have to begrudgingly admire Professor Murata for doing everything to keep what was going on there secret from the wider world." As people grimly nodded on hearing that comment, Alexander took a deep breath. "We will not stop until we find a way to give you permanent control over your bodies back, ladies. What happened to you is something we have encountered many times before...even if the end result THIS time didn't kill someone. We'll also make sure no one who is not mature enough to understand what you girls can do comes in here until we've made progress."

He indicated the corners of the ceiling overhead, where large globes of dark red minerals glowing brightly were now positioned. "Right now, those focusing crystals are moving to pump enough ruby mesonium into the atmosphere to start the decrystallizing process in your own blood." As the girls nodded in understanding, Alexander sighed. "Readings of your blood are starting to show some changes in the base chemistry, but this is something we can't predict with any accuracy."

"Whatever you can do, do it," a new voice called out, making people turn as a weary-eyed physical education teacher came out of her own cubicle. "I don't want to EVER be in a position to threaten Yū-sama if I can avoid it."

" _ **Y**_ _ **ū-sama**_ , Sensei?!" a white-faced Kyōko exclaimed. "You mean...?!"

"Yeah, Ro-500," Kagurazaka Aoi confirmed with a nod. "I sensed her come back from patrol last night, then went to meet her in her quarters," the tomboyish native of Kitakyūshū added as she tried not to shudder. "God! I could have...!"

A sob escaped her, which gained Aoi a half-dozen girls moving to comfort her right away. As she was escorted back into her cubicle so she could weep, Yui moaned. "Now you know what Yūko-chan and I had to go through over the last year," she wryly told the two magical medics as they gave her an understanding look. "All it needed was one little trigger to set it off, then..."

"You best go back to your guest quarters, Miss Arisugawa," MWO Titus said. "Much that as an Avalonian, you have quite heightened stamina, you've been running full-tilt for a year watching out for your friends. You need a chance to rest."

Yui shook her head. "Won't rest yet, Eii'sagh..."

"Has anyone seen Makoto-san?!"

People perked, then they gazed over as a silver-haired, blue-eyed sophomore with Israeli blood in her walked around the corner from the main reception area close to the stage. "What about Makoto-san, Maria-sempai?" Yui asked.

Kubo Maria pointed to her right. "She's not in her room."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Oh, Lyna, NO!" Yui screamed out as she raced past the two Canadians to look.

Sister Maria and Kyōko both followed the alien-born student around to the other long corridor of cubicles, moving to approach one particular unit. Already there were several people of Class 1-W from a year ago, including Hyūji Makoto's best friend Ichijō Ayaka. Reaching the entrance, Yui peeked in...then she slumped on seeing an empty bed and missing clothes, including the track star's school gym suit. "Oh, Lyna...!" she groaned as Sister Maria and Kyōko looked inside themselves.

Titus came over to glance in, then he spat out, "Merlin!"

"Missing?!" Alexander called out from nearby.

"Yes, Healer!"

"Right!"

As footfalls indicated that the native of Dawson City was moving to alert his commanding officer, Yui's eyes narrowed as she considered what had made Makoto want to head off on her own. As she couldn't have used her abilities to forge a sort of psi-bond to monitor the other girl — doing that would have swamped her own soul if a bell was chimed and all the girls wanted to get down and funky with each other — the adopted native of Nagoya hummed...before her eyes widened. "Yonaga...!"

Ayaka looked. "What about Yonaga-sama, Yui-chan?" the raven-haired, turquoise-eyed freshman from Kyōto then asked.

"Makoto-san's gone to be with Yonaga-san, Ayaka-san," Yui stated.

Hearing that, Titus sighed. "Sasebo."

"Do you have friends down there that can help, Sensei?" Kyōko asked.

"Loads of them, Miss Takanashi," the senior mediwizard from Old Crow assured her...

* * *

 _ **Approaching Sasebo, that moment...**_

" _ **HAX! I'M CALLING HAX! THERE'S A LIMIT TO ALL THIS MAGICAL GARBAGE!**_ "

Hearing that screamed protest from Japan's fastest destroyer, a certain standard battleship could only smirk as she steered herself through the channel into Sasebo Bay proper, the lovely Ishiharatakeshi Forest Park now off to her starboard. "My! My!" Arizona coldly observed as she shared an amused look with Yonaga while crowds on the shores to both sides cheered the arrival of the seventh carrier of Operation Z and the martyr of Pearl Harbour, sailing side-by-side. "I think Lieutenant Toyama appears to be a might bit jealous of the upgrade I just received yesterday, Captain. I doubt it will do her morale much good if a humble standard battleship such as myself ends up humiliating her while we're busy doing our duties on the high seas." She gazed once more on Shimakaze, who was sending her an annoyed look as the three animate gun turret familiars bouncing along the waves with her all gave the second of the Pennsylvania-class battleships helpless shrugs. "Then again..."

"You are not the only one who has issues with the lieutenant's sea uniform, Lieutenant Owings," Yonaga said as she sent a disapproving look at the scantily-clad experimental destroyer. As Enterprise, Yorktown, Sōryū and Hiryū all shared amused looks and snickers between them, the fifth of the Yamato-class tilted herself to go due east. Gazing to the right, she then bowed her head and whispered a prayer to the kami of Kotohira-jinja, which overlooked the entrance of the bay from atop a small hill. As both of her would-be mission mates did the same while the American shipgirls all formally saluted, Yonaga sighed. "We will work on it as soon as we complete your trials. The sooner you're back in full service, the better."

Arizona nodded. "I just hope that Margaret doesn't get it into her head to go find that nurse that wanted to be her personal 'comfort woman' to have herself upgraded. Much that I'm overjoyed that Alexandra is with us..."

Yonaga perked. "What nurse?" she demanded.

"You weren't told?!" Enterprise demanded.

"Yvonne-san, do I look like I was told?"

The second of the Yorktown-class sighed, shaking her head. "There were more people affected by that whole 'M.C. High' thing than just those kids from the school," the former intelligence officer stated. "A nursing clinic got hit as well. Over two dozen nurses and the brother of one nurse got turned into sex toys, too." As the larger carrier hissed out in horror, Enterprise shook her head. "They moved onto the island where that school was located, where Kei's and Anna's sisters found them."

"No...!" Sōryū croaked out as Hiryū paled.

"Didn't turn out to be as bad as you might think, Sei," the American carrier stated. "Turns out that by bedding those kids, Tomomi, Tokiko, Minako and Akemi began to redevelop their humanity." As Yonaga's nose scrunched in disgust and Arizona shook her head in clear disapproval, Enterprise added, "It was enough to convince them to switch flags when Lady Jane offered parole to them. Once they got to the school where Negako and Ataru are camped out..."

"Buon pomeriggio, miei amici!"

Everyone perked, then looked to east...

"Buon pomeriggio, Roberta!" Arizona stated as she waved at Roma, who was now steaming towards them from the direction of the main port, now escorted by four of Shimakaze's half-sisters from Korea who came to visit the previous day, only to get caught in a riot when local militarists tried to force Pongp'ung, T'aekp'ung, Ch'ungp'ung and T'anp'ung "back" into Japanese service. Such a riot being stopped thanks to an insanely-powerful magical child named Miyake Harumi.

Said child now floating serenely above the forward superstructure of the third of the Littorio-class battleships.

WITHOUT a broom, magical carpet or other device to help her stay aloft!

"Tell me, little one," Yonaga then called out as her small force moved to station-keeping while Roma turned herself around to fall in on the large carrier's starboard side. "Is Teitoku aware that you're out here doing this?"

Harumi shrugged, acting in a way that reminded Enterprise and her opponents from Midway of the members of Taffy Three. "They can't see me, Oba-chan," the native of Kagoshima down the coast from Sasebo asserted. "Notice-me-not charm."

"Keep it applied until it is safe to bring it down where you won't cause a scene like you did yesterday," Yonaga then bade. "Much that it is an annoyance at times, the Statute of Secrecy is a law Tennō's revered ancestor vowed to respect in the second year of Genroku. As we are His Loyal Subjects, we are duty-bound to obey that law." At the young would-be Obscurial's curious look, the carrier took a deep breath. "Anno Domini 1692." At the young Catholic girl's understanding nod, Yonaga's eyebrow arched. "I see we'll need to work on getting you educated in your homeland's history, among other things."

Harumi nodded, beaming at the idea that after so long, responsible adults were willing to pay attention to her and NOT hurt her. She then looked around in confusion. "Where are Tante Catarina and Aunt Michiko, Oba-chan?"

"They'll be along in an hour or so," Enterprise said as she pointed to the west. "Unlike Sonia here, her sister didn't get the speed improvements, so Rinnie and Michiko are making sure that Maggie comes in safe and sound."

The not-a-teenager hummed as she focused out west for a moment, then she snapped her fingers, causing a flash of light behind everyone. " _ **HEY!**_ " came the outraged gasp of Arizona's sister, that accompanied by cries of surprise from the other shipgirls who had been escorting them...with a familiar " _ **POI?!**_ " from the fourth of the Shiratsuyu-class destroyers who had come out with one of her best friends to be there for Pennsylvania when she watched her sister go through her paces.

Yonaga sighed. "You are undamaged?" she asked as she gazed behind her.

The small squadron around Arizona's sister — Prinz Eugen, San Francisco, Fubuki, Yūdachi, Akebono and Kasumi — blinked in confusion for a moment, then the profane eighth of the Ayanami-class charged over to join the main group. "What the hell just happened, Yoiko-san?!" Akebono snapped as she steadied herself, ready to lash out at whoever it was that just teleported them almost a hundred kilometres in an instant. "Some stupid, shitty magical playing tricks on all of us now?!"

Yonaga twitched. "Akemi-san, we MUST speak about your language!"

Akebono gazed at her...

...then she openly winced on seeing the sniffling girl about the same age as Nagato's adopted son or the local American commander's daughter, who had just drifted down into Prinz Eugen's arms, a hurt look on her face.

"You and your big mouth, Akemi!" Kasumi muttered, shaking her head...

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, a half-hour later...**_

" _ **YOU DID**_ **TWENTY-EIGHT** _ **KNOTS?!**_ " Rear Admiral John Richardson demanded.

Arizona nodded. "Yes, Admiral. I was able to sustain it for the full speed run from Nakadori Island to here. No strain on the hull and the diesel engines were able to augment my power needs when my turbines were going all out. With the way my fuel consumption was like during the speed trial, my chief engineer believes I could do eight thousand nautical miles at fifteen knots. I may not be fast enough to serve as a carrier escort, but I can easily deny a large area of sky from enemy attacks."

"But you need to be trained in using all the new weapons," Mutsu noted from beside her fiancé. "It's good that you got the upgrade you needed to help out, but given how far of a leap it was for you, it's no wonder that your crew needs help."

"Could Darlene-sensei help out in this case?" Hiei asked.

Yonaga hummed. She and Arizona were standing in front of Richardson's desk while the other carriers, battleships and cruisers who had been out on the high seas or had gone to meet them as they came into harbour relaxing on couches nearby. "Some of her crew who sacrificed themselves when it came time to see Darlene-san turned into a kanmusu had served on her right from her commissioning in 1912. They had to teach themselves how to use the new missile systems she was fitted with in the 1980s, not to mention the handling procedures for the Sea Kings she was made to carry. They had just adopted to the new Cyclone helicopters when came time for her to become a kanmusu." She gazed at the battleship beside her as some of the people in the room winced on being reminded of the horrid cost the First Canadian Battleship Squadron paid to see their vessels become shipgirls. "Does your air division feel confidant enough to try to fly those Seahawks you now possess?"

"They're willing to learn since they want to get in on the action after being cooped up in harbour," Arizona stated. "Much that I find a helicopter quite strange given that only autogyros had been flying successfully at the time I was sunk, it will be something of a chore." She gazed upon the carrier. "Did any of your pilots learn how to fly helicopters in the half-year between your meeting Captain Chennalton and your own transformation? I'm sure they must have been curious."

[As a matter of fact, Sonia-san, some of us did.]

"Oh, my!" Hiryū gasped as a faerie appeared on Yonaga's left shoulder. "How did he get assigned to YOUR crew, Yoiko-san?!"

"He volunteered, Hiyoko-san," the larger carrier asserted. "My friends, the first test pilot for the Aichi D3A, Lieutenant Torii Yoshiro. He personally requested to fly with the Sixth Naval Air Flotilla when the chance came, even with the temporary 'affiliation' to Unit 731." One could coat the floor of Richardson's office with the scorn Yonaga felt on mentioning the unit that had actually "commissioned" her in 1941. "When we were in Nanisivik, he got the chance to fly the CH-148 Cyclone. Since the CH-148 and the SH-60B are built by the same company, the actual controls for such machines should be similar despite the four decades of advancement between the Seahawk and the Cyclone. Captain, could the lieutenant come aboard?"

[We'd welcome whatever help you can give us, ma'am,] a voice with a more modern Midwest accent then declared from the area of Arizona herself, which instantly got Richardson to his feet as he saluted the living spirit of her last captain.

"This is a surprise, Captain Van Valkenburgh," the Virginia native declared.

The sharp eyes of all the shipgirls present were quick to see the faerie blush even if he returned the admiral's salute. [Damn! I'm starting to see a little bit about how you Japanese view these things, ma'am!]

"How so, Captain?" Yonaga asked.

[Being saluted after getting the Medal of Honour for DYING at your post, all thanks to improper ammunition stowage?!]

Richardson blushed. "Still...!"

[John-san, the captain is entitled to his own views, even now. Especially now,] an aged voice declared from Yonaga's right shoulder as another faerie appeared, this one in the uniform of a full admiral in the Imperial Navy. As all the Japanese shipgirls straightened themselves to attention on noting that the spirit of Admiral Fujita Hiroshi had come forth to convey his own wisdom on this particular issue, the faerie added, [As soon as Arizona can be properly topped off in the cafeteria, we can return to the bay for some harbour trials where she can learn to launch those new autogyros of hers from her quarterdeck.]

[If my flyboys don't crash them first, Admiral,] Arizona's captain asserted.

[Under my tutelage, Captain, they shall do no such thing!] the dive/torpedo bomber pilot who had been flying top-cover over Yonaga when she had first encountered Chennalton a year ago near Wrangel Island vowed.

Laughter came from within the battleship's hull as Richardson shook his head at yet another crazy display of shipgirl magic...

* * *

 _ **The cafeteria, a half-hour later...**_

"Sonia-san!"

Arizona perked from her tray of doughnuts, then she looked over her shoulder before her eyes widened in surprise. "Keiko!" she exclaimed on seeing the young raven-haired nurse that had been the catalyst for her upgrade the previous morning. "What on Earth are you doing here?!" she then asked as Matsuhara Keiko sat down beside her, a small tray of food in hand.

The bespectacled native of Edogawa in Tōkyō smiled as she sat down. She was still dressed in the conjured Royal Canadian Navy dark blue naval combat dress uniform that had been created for her by Chennalton when she had been brought with her friends from Kagoshima to Sasebo to be permanently broken free of the hypnosis that had been forced on them by Murata Eiichi. "I'm seen as part of the base civilian staff now, Sonia-san," the bespectacled nurse reported as she gazed warmly at the battleship. "It seems that kiss I gave you when I was under the hypnosis — added to those potions Chennalton-sensei gave me after that — ended up giving me a lot more conscious control over myself than I've had for almost two years." As the other shipgirls nodded in understanding, Keiko sighed. "Negako-sama warned me that there will be flashback issues..."

"Post-traumatic stress disorder," Enterprise noted. "Not so surprising."

"What about the others?" Pennsylvania asked.

Keiko sighed. "Akemi's been asking about you, Margaret-san."

"Margaret, please don't take advantage of that poor girl!" Arizona insisted.

"Hey, everyone!"

People turned...

"Hey, Alex! Get over here!" Pennsylvania called out as the lead ship of her class of standard battleships came up, a tray of food in hand. "Haven't seen you since I got towed to Bikini for the Crossroads tests! How are you?!"

Tennessee smiled as she sat down across from the older battleship. "Shocked at a lot of things, but I'm ready to serve," the namesake of the Volunteer State said before she whispered grace, then she dug into the food. "Heard about the speed trials after that 'refit' you got yesterday, Sonia. Twenty-eight knots? That's practically as fast as what these ones need as escorts." She thumbed Enterprise and Yorktown in emphasis before she sipped her coffee, then dug into her plate of grits.

"Not as fast as some of the younger battleships can go, Alexandra," Arizona noted as Keiko reached over under the table to squeeze her leg, making the namesake of the Canyon State blush slightly at the nurse's attention. "Certainly fast enough to act as part of a rapid-response force." She shook her head. "It's a pity that someone hasn't found a way to summon Joanna back. We could use her expertise in handling missiles so I can get back on full duty as soon as possible."

"And Joanna-san is...?" Yonaga asked.

"Mississippi the younger, Captain," Tennessee answered.

"The Idaho-class battleship?"

"Same. Joanna Wilkinson is her human name. She was converted to a test-bed for the RIM-2 Terrier missiles using Mark 10 launchers. She would be familiar with the concept. The Standard missile was a successor unit to the Terrier."

"Sonia's capable of launching Standards from her Mark 57 launchers," Enterprise noted.

"Could we summon Joanna-san?" Keiko then wondered.

People gazed on the nurse, then Arizona hummed. "Alexandra, how did you come back to us again?"

"I came here after hearing a song named _Tennessee_ by a fellow named Hans Zimmer," Tennessee answered.

Yonaga hummed. "From the _Pearl Harbour_ movie?"

"Yes, Captain."

People exchanged looks, then Pennsylvania smirked. "Any songs named after that state we can use to bring Joanna back?"

"Let's go find out," Enterprise proposed...

* * *

 _ **K**_ _ **ōkai Junior High School, a half-hour later...**_

"I think I have something here..."

Slipping the earphones off his head, Moroboshi Ataru then tapped controls for the improvised summoning machine that his sister Negako had installed into the former gymnasium shortly after she first came to Earth eleven months ago after getting her own body on Okusei in the wake of Morningstar Plain. "I hope at least it's a good and decent song," Pennsylvania mused. "She's a Southern girl, Ataru. She was built at Newport News. I doubt she'll like modern music."

He shrugged. The orchestral echoes of Two Steps From Hell's _Victory_ drifted over the summoning pool as he slowly fed power into the enchanted waters. "This one might surprise you, Maggie-san," he stated as he winked at the copper-haired namesake of the Keystone State. "After all, would you expect Yoiko-san of all people to be a fan of a power metal band like _**Sabaton**_?" He nodded in amusement at the seventh carrier of Operation Z, who was gazing at the summoning waters.

Pennsylvania looked at Yonaga, then shook her head. "Normal's overrated!" she quipped, which made others laugh.

"You seem a little more chipper, Margaret-san."

People turned as Kaga came up, walking hand-in-hand with her rejuvenated sister. Using their special sight to detect what Tosa would look like as a warship, people then nodded on noting that she had come highly modernized in the same general fashion as peers such as Nagato were during the years of the Great Depression. "You won't list over because of that pagoda mast, will you?" the American battleship then asked as the former Abyssal princess took her seat next to her.

Tosa gazed neutrally at her, then she sighed. "I'm sure that the many magical artisans who help the people summon Tennō's warriors back to duty are working to give me the same capabilities your sister now possesses, Margaret-san," she said in a voice that seemed as hollow as Yonaga's in places. As Kaga sat beside her to squeeze her shoulder in support, the battleship known also as Fujita Tomomi lightly smiled even if she sent a wary glance at the larger carrier standing nearby.

Ataru tried not to shake his head on seeing that. While Yonaga had not got the chance to sortie below the line of the Aleutian Islands before and after her change to a kanmusu, her reputation was known worldwide to Abyssal leaders regardless if they were installation princesses like Wanko or Hoppō...or corrupted shipgirl spirits like Tosa and her battlecruiser companions. While he wasn't really bothered by the power that the carrier had inherited from the greatest of the Great Beasts some months before, he knew that the former abyssal ruler of the East China Sea would not want to duel the fifth of the Yamato-class in battle. As for Yonaga herself, she would be watching over Kaga's sister like a hawk until Tosa had proven herself on the high seas against the enemies, as she would do for Akagi's returned sisters Tōgasa, Minako and Ashitaka. Even if Kaga had once been an Abyssal herself, she had the strength of character to throw off the darkness and join her old fleet mates when the chance presented itself. Tosa and her companions had never got the opportunity to throw off their own shackles until chance brought them to an all-girl's school in Kyūshū, where the power of love had proven too strong in the end.

Speaking of which...

"Tomomi..."

Tosa's pale cheeks flushed before she looked over her shoulder as a dark-haired woman in Canadian naval combat dress came up from the back entrance to the stage, a worried look on her face. "I assume you got an 'upgrade kiss' just like Sonia did," Pennsylvania said with a wry chuckle as Matsuda Sawako sat down on the opposite side of Tosa from her own sister.

The dark-haired nurse blushed, though she was quick to squeeze her long-time lover's hand in reassurance. "The hypnosis overcame me when Kei brought Tomomi into my guest bedroom to visit me last night, Margaret-san," Sawako explained. "Fortunately, it was enough to bring her up to the level people such as Reiko-san and Anne-san had been upgraded to before the Second World War began. The girls who were lovers to Tokiko, Minako and Akemi were able to do it for them as well."

"That's good," Pennsylvania stated before she looked around. "Sonia...?"

Yonaga perked before she reached out with her AN/SPY-1A radar to scan around. "She's with Keiko-sensei right now in the library, Margaret-san," the carrier assured the older battleship. "No doubt, they wanted a little time alone."

That made the namesake of the Keystone State blink before she chuckled, crossing her arms as she waited for the show to begin. "Damn! Can't believe that _**Sonia**_ of all people would be so willing to go chase a skirt! Even if she's a nurse!"

"Indeed, it is strange given the way she was in the past," Kaga noted...

* * *

 _ **The library...**_

"Sonia, relax. We're alone now."

Arizona was trying not to blush as she felt her new friend shift the battleship's hand to her belt buckle. "Keiko, this is too sudden...!" the martyr of Pearl Harbour tried not to sputter as the nurse leaned her forehead on her bridge.

"I don't mind," Keiko gently soothed.

A shake of the head responded. "You were compelled by that evil man...!"

"Yes, I was," the nurse stated. "And I hate him for it and I hope that when they catch him, Yoiko-sama gets very creative when it comes time to punish him for his many sins against God and man alike." She then impishly shrugged as she rested the battleship's hand over her crotch, which made Arizona turn as red as a cherry. "I trust you with my body and my soul, Sonia Owings. Yes, it was forced...but in a way, Murata-hakase was right. You girls go out there to fight the devils Satan unleashed on us, running the risk of dying and..." She then shook her head as her eyes teared. "Who really CARES for you all? Who tries to understand what you all go through? Yes, I was forced into this..." Keiko then gave the battleship a smile. "But I'm glad for it. Just as I'm glad that Ataru-kun wrote that letter that said that you're not just U.S.S. _Arizona_. You're Sonia Lily Owens of Phoenix, lieutenant of the United States Navy. You were drafted into fighting those things after going to your well-earned rest..." She shook her head. "In our desperation to keep control over our lives, we tore you from That Place where you were at peace. It was wrong. So we have to atone. That's what drove the professor to do what he did. And while I was drafted..."

Arizona gazed at her, then she leaned in. Keiko tilted her head to take that kiss from the namesake of the Canyon State, her arms then reaching around the battleship's neck as their tongues gently probed the other woman's mouth. After a moment, they pulled apart, a tiny trail of drool connecting their lips as their cheeks flushed with both passion and embarrassment that they had gladly gone that far. "Don't be afraid of me, Sonia," the nurse then urged. "Don't be afraid..."

"Whoa! What a happening scene!" a strange woman's voice then called out, which made Arizona and Keiko both gasp. "Come by to rap with the Earth Child and her bro, then I find an old lady going to the sub races! Radical!"

Both girls looked over...

...before they blinked on seeing the tall and slender woman standing there, having probably teleported into the library; inside her combat information centre near her navigation bridge, Arizona's crew of fire controlmen were running over what some had seen from the readouts of her new AN/SPS-67 surface search radar, which they were slowly starting to trial out. Then realizing that the woman was speaking with a clear western American accent, she asked, "Who are you?"

"Chill, Sonia," the newcomer said as she gently shifted her waist-long, wavy caramel brown hair around like she was trying to listen to something in the distance. Said hair was dotted with freshly-cut flowers that glowed with considerable power. She was dressed in what appeared to be a WAVES-type summer white uniform, though it showed off a lot of skin, the sleeves were cut at the shoulders, her mid-rift from below her cruiser-shaped breasts to just under her navel was bare and the skirt seemed almost as short as Shimakaze's...and never mind the insane, eye-watering colouring of her skirt and armoured thigh-high stockings that flowed into her sea boots! There was no sign of any sea rigging even if her boots had ship hulls under the heel. "Didn't mean to crash the scene! Feeling free love by a sister to a good looking chick ashore always draws me in! Way cooler than the surf off Waikīkī!" Her blue eyes — which seemed out of focus to the battleship at first glance, which reminded her of how her current companion had appeared when she had given Arizona that incredible kiss the previous morning — then focused on the battleship before they widened. "Whoa! Rad!" she then whooped in delight before she looked around. "Looks like Mama D managed to help you get out of that harbour finally, sister! Seriously cool! You can spread free love all...!"

" _ **ACK!**_ "

Heads snapped over...

...then the newcomer gaped on seeing a sputtering reborn battlecruiser now staring in mortal fright at her from the hallway beyond the main doors, while her lover and her sister were trying to calm her down as she made warding signs. Seeing that, the newcomer sighed before she walked over, making Tōgasa wail as she tried to melt herself against her lover Horiguchi Junko. As the blonde, brown-eyed native of Takamatsu on Shikoku shushed the moaning battlecruiser, Akagi gazed intently at the newcomer, quick to sense out the aura of a very modern cruiser surrounding this girl. A glance down to her thigh-highs — which were painted, along with her skirt, in a wild psychedelic array of colours that didn't match any known camouflage scheme used by any naval power — showed the neon orange number **9** on the outer sides. "Um...who might you be?" the converted battlecruiser asked as she slowly shifted herself into a protective position concerning Tōgasa.

"Greetings, Cass. You are well?"

The newcomer looked over, then she smiled. "Hey, Earth Child!" she said as she almost skipped over to warmly embrace Moroboshi Negako, they sharing a very passionate kiss. "Man, what's with all the free love here now?!" she asked as she thumbed towards the doorway to the library, where a confused Arizona and a wide-eyed Keiko now stood. "Was cruising along Route Six when I felt the old lady here start to watch the submarine races with this cool chick here! What's up?"

"Hey, Cass!"

Arizona looked to her starboard to see the current deputy chief of staff to President Josiah Bartlet standing nearby, an amused smile on his face. "Hey, Josh! What's going down, man?! Papa J anywhere close?!" the newcomer said.

"Nah! Papa J's heading back to D.C., Cass," Josh Lyman said as the newcomer came over to embrace him, earning her a jealous look from his senior assistant Donna Moss, who had volunteered to stay with Lyman as he kept an eye on things in Japan for the next while. Said jealous look racked up to something that nearly made the native of northern Minnesota near the Lake of the Woods turn as red as a cherry when said newcomer gave Lyman a warm, tongue-filled kiss on the lips. "Couldn't stay here with all the craziness members of the Magical Congress love to cause." As the newcomer gave him a wary look, he sighed. "They pulled another attack on Sarah Gale a couple days ago, Cass. The Marines caught them and Ida had to use her power to make them retire, but the stalebloods in the Magical Congress are being stubborn according to Professor Quahog."

A snort escaped the cruiser as she pulled away. "Man, magical pigs are worse than SPs that never got time to get a chick for some sub races!" she derisively noted, which made Lyman laugh as Moss gaped in shock at such language. "Want me to go to the Big Apple and turn 'em into guacamole, Josh? Can make it look like a fender-bender, just like Mama E did that toad from London Town that wanted to take Reiko's kid away! Trying to break Ida and Sarah up?! That is SO not cool!"

Lyman hummed as he considered that for a moment, then he shook his head. "Nah! It's beating up little puppies, Cass!" he then admonished, which made her think for a moment before she slowly nodded. "Free love, remember?!"

A sage nod answered that comment. "Always!"

"Josh, who is this girl?" Moss then asked.

"I would also like to know the answer to that question, Mister Lyman," Arizona stated.

"She's the _**Crazy One**_...!"

Eyes locked on a pale Tōgasa — who was staring at the newcomer as if she was infected with something no Abyssal wanted to catch — then Lyman smirked. "Nah! She's not crazy, Miss Fujita! Mama Cass is just a child of the Summer of Love!"

"The _**Summer of Love**_?!" Moss demanded.

"Yeah!" he assured her.

"Hey, Cass!"

The newcomer turned, then she whooped as she jogged over to warmly embrace Ataru. "Hey, A-man! You're still looking hip!" She then glanced around him to stare in amusement at a huffing Roma. "Chill, Bobbi! I know he's your squeeze!"

She then kissed him on the lips, which he returned while flashing a mental note of reassurance to the third of the Littorio-class battleships. Roma nodded before her eyes widened, then she gaped. "This is _**Long Beach**_?!" she exclaimed.

As jaws dropped all around save for Lyman and Negako...

"Oh, God! She really exists?!"

That was San Francisco, who was standing at a nearby T-junction with Prinz Eugen and a curious Miyake Harumi. Seeing the wide-eyed disbelief on the old treaty cruiser's face, the newcomer grinned. "Hey, Michi! When you gonna crash down on your pad in the Presidio and go see your old man?! He's been worried sick about you, wondering if you got a special boatswain mate!" Her eyes then fixed on the wide-eyed would-be Obscurial. "Whoa! You got a little kid, too?!"

Tōgasa moaned. "Crazy One...the Mean Kids...!"

Long Beach's eyes sharpened instantly as her head snapped around to focus on the shivering battlecruiser, which made Akagi's sister yelp in fright as the ghostly image of a Mark 10 twin-rail guided missile launcher appeared over the cruiser's left hand, both rails holding RIM-67 Standard ER surface-to-air missiles. Seeing that, Tōgasa's brown eyes widened as she sensed the powerful core of energy contained in both of those deadly warheads. "Don't bad-mouth the munchkins! That's NOT cool, square chick!" the first nuclear-powered surface warship in the world said in a voice that was cold, tinged with a terrible outrage that made Akagi's sister pale in horror on realizing that no matter how she acted, the Crazy One was just as frightfully capable as the Angry One and the Dragon Slayers when it came to dishing out pain to anyone who crossed her.

Footsteps made the cruiser turn to look as Harumi came up to gaze upon her. As Long Beach relaxed herself, the not-a-teenager from Kagoshima then raised her right hand, index and middle finger extended in a "V". "Peace!"

The cruiser smiled as she replicated that move. "Peace, Little Sis!"

Ataru laughed on seeing that before he perked as Lyman's assistant tapped him on the shoulder. "What is it?!" he demanded.

"That's _**Long Beach**_!" Moss snapped.

"Yes, we established that, Donna!" the deputy chief of staff at the White House said, an annoyed look on his face. "Her full name — as Ataru was so nice to give her when she manifested herself ten months ago thanks to Miss Negako telling him about her — is Ellen Naomi Michelle Haight-Ashbury. She likes to be called 'Cass' or 'Mama Cass' in honour of the late Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas. Her favourite song is _San Francisco_ , written by Ms. Elliot's friend John Phillips for Scott Mackenzie. She's currently a shipgirl under direct command of the President as his personal shipgirl hit-girl, listening to her inner voice — which is as strong in her own way as any Canadian battleship's mage-senses — that takes her to all sorts of hot spots. As you noticed by the reaction of Commander Fujita's sister, the Abyssals think she's completely insane. But she's found several small squadrons of random-spawned Abyssal destroyers, which she gladly saved from princesses who would like to do nothing more than EAT those poor things!" As Moss gasped in horror on hearing that — the news of what battleship Tirpitz had run into in the North Sea sometime ago had stunned the world — Lyman shrugged as he gazed upon the cruiser. "She's not crazy! She psychedelic and not all there at times when she wants to listen to her 'voice', but she's NOT crazy!"

Moss blinked before she shook her head. "Josh!"

"Yes, Donna?"

"She's a _**nuclear-powered cruiser**_!"

"Yeah, she is. So what?"

"This is _**Japan**_!"

"I'm aware of that, Donna!"

"Chill, Donna!" Long Beach then said as she winked at the native of Minnesota. "My generation wanted to ban the Bomb, remember?" As Donna stared in confusion at her, the cruiser smiled as she shrugged. "My reactors are fuelled with mesonium these days. Not the bad stuff the squares weaponized and dropped on 'Shima and 'Saki in '45 to bring that real bad scene to a final end." With that, she turned and headed down to the former gymnasium, whistling a protest song from her age.

Harumi watched her go, then she giggled as she raced off after her. As both Eugen and San Francisco warily watched the young magical run off after Long Beach, Ataru smirked. "Relax, girls! Cass is unique, but her heart's in the right place!"

Both older cruisers stared wide-eyed at him...

* * *

 _ **The summoning room, thirty minutes later...**_

"You're WHERE?!"

"Trischen Island. That's near the mouth of the Elbe downriver from Hamburg," Saratoga replied to Enterprise over secure communications relayed by satellites. "It turns out that a child princess was found by one of the zeppelins flying for the Luftwaffe. She had made her base at the old magic school that was here, then her small fleet found a whole regiment's worth of war golems designed by one of the Black Maidens and her old professor." Here, the second of the Lexington-class carriers giggled. "Among them were six replicas of Major Heinrich's closest friends from her old BDM troop; the real people were killed by Czech partisans in '42. Trista wanted to 'play' with one, but didn't know how to wake them up, not like all her cruisers did with some very handsome boy golems." As Enterprise laughed on hearing that, Saratoga shrugged. "We can sense that the North Sea Princess is keeping an eye on things, but she hasn't done anything to bring harm to Trista or her fleet."

"Isley won't do that to little Trista, Dionne. She loves that kid."

Enterprise turned as Long Beach came up. Harumi was now riding the cruiser's shoulders, waving her hand over the glowing flowers that the carrier was quick to sense were Long Beach's AN/SPG-55B fire control radars sets for her forward Mark 10 missile launchers. "You've actually checked over that island?" the second of the Yorktown-class asked the lone cruiser of her class. "Did you report this to the President, Cass? Even if she's done nothing so far, that Trista is so close to Hamburg..."

The adopted native of her namesake city in California and Quincy in Massachusetts shrugged, her head swishing to and fro slightly in a way that reminded Enterprise of the famous soul and pop singer Stevie Wonder. "Yeah, I told Papa J about little Trista and her friends crashing in that old magic school; I passed through the area two months ago when my voice told me that someone was there being mellow. I saw those cool golems Miss Linn made. Wanted to even take one for myself!" As Saratoga laughed and Enterprise shook her head in amazement at the cruiser's laid-back attitude, Long Beach added, "But since Trista's fleet needed them more, I left them be. Since she wasn't doing something square, Papa J left it be."

The former intelligence officer considered that for a moment before a concerned look crossed her face. "Do the Magical Congress or the other parts of the Department of Magic know about you, Cass?"

"Wouldn't surprise me," the cruiser noted with a tired shrug. "Most magicals on the home front are way too square at times, E. You know what they do to poor Sarah, don't you?" At the carrier's grim nod, Long Beach sighed. "Yeah, someone might have made sure that what I saw didn't get to the right people over in Celebration City to tell their pals on the other side of the big pond. That toad lady who wanted to put Reiko's kid in the hurt locker that Mama E just took care of isn't the only magical pig-lover around who wants to put righteous people down just to keep the magical squares masked from hip folks like us. Not like that old guru who runs that nice old castle up in Scotland, much less his hip friends down in London Town."

"I hardly ever considered myself a guru, Commander Haight-Ashbury."

That made Long Beach pale as Albus Dumbledore's head leaned into the camera's view. "Dude! Dude! Please! I'm Cass!"

"He hardly knows you, Cass!" Saratoga teased.

Dumbledore laughed before he focused on the child riding the cruiser's shoulders. "You don't seem to be Admiral Richardson's daughter, young lady. I trust you've been protected by a Fidelius to keep certain things secret." Here, he winked.

As Harumi blushed, Enterprise sighed. "She has more than enough reasons to know about magic, Professor. She was one of many who were captured by Unit 731 and experimented on to create Obscurials..." She paused as the headmaster's blue eyes went wide with horror, then she added in a voice full of ashes, "...on _**Nakanotori-shima**_. She was one of the children the Marines and the Foresters couldn't find. They were hidden in a cave by one of the monsters Marshal Yomigawa saw killed."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Oh, Merlin...!"

"It's okay, Kōchō-sensei," Harumi assured him.

"Chill, man," Long Beach added. "Little Harumi and the munchkins on that island got out of the cave, then decided to crash there and be a commune away from the squares until the Abyssals busted their scene and forced them to amscray."

"They're the 'mean kids' you've probably heard of, Professor," Enterprise added.

Dumbledore took that in, then he shook his head. "Well, for someone who has to be at least ninety, young lady, you do wear your age quite well!" he then commented, making Harumi blush as Long Beach laughed. "Are all your friends well?!"

"They're fine, Professor," Enterprise assured him. "They came to Fukuoka after they discovered how to apparate, then were taken in by missionaries. We didn't find out about them until one of the Korean girls came to Sasebo when four of Shimakaze's sisters were in town after escorting a convoy from Pusan. Some local militarists came by to try to force them 'back' into Japanese service, then this one here took care of them before her friend from Korea calmed her down."

"It was disguised by the Kyūmagun and 'W' Commando, Professor," Nagato's voice called out from beyond the camera range. "Now that we can watch over the kids, they won't have to fight again like they did before they escaped the island."

A moan escaped the aged headmaster. "Oh, dear..."

"Yeah, it was a bad scene, but no one could have known, man," Long Beach warned. "Black meson does that." As people on both sides of Eurasia grimly nodded on hearing that, the cruiser then perked as a song echoed in the background...

 _Where you can hear the country song from far  
_ _And someone plays a honky-tonk guitar,  
_ _Where all the lights will go out one by one,  
_ _Where people join the sun  
_ _And the wind takes it away..._

 _Where the Mississippi rolls down to the sea  
_ _And lovers found the place they like to be,  
_ _How many times before the song was ending?  
_ _Love and understanding!  
_ _Everywhere around..._

"Hey! This is a cool tune!" Long Beach mused as she swayed to the music...

 _Mississippi,  
_ _I'll remember you!  
_ _Whenever I should go away,  
_ _I'll be longing for the day  
_ _That I will be in Greenville again..._

 _Mississippi,  
_ _You'll be on my mind!  
_ _Every time I hear this song,  
_ _Mississippi rolls along  
_ _Until the end of time..._

Enterprise and Long Beach then perked as their radar picked up a rather large ship now approaching them from the direction of the summoning pool. Saratoga and Dumbledore were quick to see those looks, then they exchanged smiles.

"Oh, my! Now, whoever is playing that beautiful song?!"

As some of the nurses — and Tosa's future brother-in-law Matsuda Keisuke — all cheered in delight on noting that the second of the Idaho-class battleships had just crossed back from the spirit realms, Pennsylvania's wild laugh of delight echoed through the former gymnasium. "Hey, Mudpuppy! You're late!" the first of her own class of battleships heckled.

A haughty sniff answered the namesake of the Keystone State. "Who are you calling 'Mudpuppy', you foolish old lady?!" the namesake of the Magnolia State frostily returned...before a shocked gasp escaped her. "Miss Negako?! Is that you?!"

Enterprise and Long Beach looked over to see a regal-looking woman standing on the waters of the summoning pool, dressed in a ballroom gown with the same cut as had been worn by antebellum plantation women of the old South, it in medium blue with a dark blue petticoat underneath the skirt and gold trim on the jersey. A black parasol was now carried by Mississippi, it designed with beautiful lace patterns that made it seem like frilly silk from a distance. The shipgirl herself had the same sort of stocky build that Pennsylvania, Arizona and Tennessee had, though her muscles seemed to flow with a gracefulness that would easily make onlookers think she was a normal woman and not a reborn standard super-dreadnought of the Great War era. She had the tanned skin of someone who spent much of her life outdoors, with wavy butternut brown hair tied in a simple ponytail at the base of her neck and very welcoming blue-green eyes, which were now fixed upon the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū, a look of total delight now washing over her face. Noting that, Ataru gazed on Negako. "Um, Onē-san..."

Negako lightly smiled. "Joanna here, when she was deployed to the Sagami Sea after the surrender, was boarded by rogues of the Black Dragon Society that escaped my move to eliminate them on the evening the Gyokuon-hōsō was recorded by Hirohito Tennō." As Yonaga gave her a curious look on hearing Negako address that man THAT way and a flash of confusion crossed Mississippi's face, the ninjutsu grandmaster added, "Fortunately, she was not too far from shore, so I was not distracted by the presence of so much water between her keel and the floor of the Sagami Sea. Not only that, the two who attempted to sink her and kill her crew were younger than you, Ataru. Eliminating them was easily done without Joanna's crew sensing it."

"Why use the name 'Joanna' for me, Miss Negako?" Mississippi asked.

"Come out of the pool and such will be explained, my friend."

As the newly-arrived battleship complied, Long Beach sighed. "Square."

Enterprise and Harumi both gazed at the cruiser...

* * *

 _ **Nerima, the Tendō home, that moment...**_

"D-d-dead...?"

"Hai," the ward manager of Nerima declared as he gazed at his host, who looked ready to break down and weep at the thought of never having his old partner around again. "He was caught trespassing on an _**American**_ military reservation in a time of war with intent to hurt a person who worked there. Since Americans believe in the concept of self-defence, Hayashi Kanami-san made use of a weapon provided to her by Moroboshi Ataru-san to strike your friend down, Tendō-kun." As Tendō Sōun gaped in horror on hearing who it was that had done such a dead, the ward manager sighed. "She did...and Saotome-kun was killed. It was declared a legal act by Rear Admiral Richardson, the commander of American naval forces in Japan. Any attempt by anyone to accuse Kanami-san of murder will not be permitted. Not by you, not by Saotome-kun's wife or anyone else."

As Sōun shuddered as he felt the urge to unleash his "demon head" power to make his guest submit to the long-standing need to unite the schools of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū as had long been envisioned by himself and Saotome Genma, the ward manager's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't even bother trying, Tendō-kun," he said in a voice that was so cold that it made the patriarch of the Tendō Clan of Ōizumi flush in outrage on realizing that none of his co-workers in the ward council were afraid of him anymore. "You don't have Kunō Tatewaki around to hide behind anymore. Given what Taihō-sama did to him some days ago, it will be a miracle if he'll EVER recover from the coma she put him into when he attacked her. You can't depend on Kunō Kodachi to help out. She has no care at all for that 'agreement' you made with Saotome-kun concerning the union of your families and she'll refuse to help you when it comes to Kanami-san. You can guarantee that Kunō Godai will not help you; he's too busy trying to help his 'son' recover that he won't have time to give you whatever 'help' you could want...if his daughter doesn't stop him first. And you don't have Saotome Nodoka to help out either. After Yonaga-sama got finished with her when Akebono-sama came to town, her family retrieved her from the hospital and had her moved to her family home in Gunma. Given the severity of her own injuries, her full recovery will be as much a miracle as Kunō Tatewaki's."

Quaking in disbelief at that horrible cold analysis of what had happened and how it affected his own dreams, Sōun shook his head. "This cannot be...!" he hissed out. "Ranko must return back to Nerima! Ranko must become a boy again...!"

"Hit him!"

 _KR-KRACK!_

Sōun moaned in a semi-conscious daze after a statute of Jizō was smashed down on his head, sending him face-first into the floor. Now looming over him was a tall, bald, sumotori-sized warrior in a white gi with black belt around his waist. With a face that seemed like the slopes of a mountain, the Dōjō Destroyer could only shake his head before he nodded his thanks as Happōsai handed him the sign for the Tendō Dōjō. Gazing at it, the tall warrior born Michiba Hatatsu could only shake his head before he effortlessly crushed the sign. The sound of THAT caused Sōun to bolt back up to his feet and spin on the despised man who had once tried to take his dream away. " _ **HOW DARE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU...?!**_ "

"Hit him!"

 _KK-KRACK!_

Again, the statue of Jizō smashed him down to the floorboards thanks to the Dōjō Destroyer. "You are also removed from the town council for your lies concerning the Panty Thief, Tendō-kun," the ward manager added, his glasses glittering as a smirk crossed his face. As Sōun gargled on hearing that his only source of truly disposable income had now been taken from him — all expenses concerning the house itself were paid for by a trust fund set up by his father-in-law to keep a roof over his granddaughters' heads, a fund Sōun couldn't touch — the other man smiled. "While Moroboshi Negako-sama was able to explain what was going on with your teacher, no criminal charges will be laid against you. But you will NEVER be trusted to hold a post of government again. Do not attempt to force your way back into the offices just because your worthless sense of pride gets in the way of what common sense you have. You have no allies in town now. Just retire and stay out of people's way. If you don't, you can guarantee the kanmusu will get involved. Yonaga-sama is prepared to behead you on the spot if you ever cross her path. And I'm sure Kanami-san has a bullet with your name on it. Given the ghastly level of abuse that you forced on that poor girl, you'll deserve it." He then turned to bow low to Tendō Kasumi. "I apologize for all that, Kasumi-san."

"Do not apologize," Sōun's elder daughter and the effective matriarch of her clan said with a polite smile, one that didn't reflect in her eyes. "He was warned. His friend was warned. His friend's wife was warned. If he's so hell-bent on forcing his sick dreams on an innocent woman who has long earned the right to live her own life as she chooses to live it, then let him die for it." She then nodded to the Destroyer. "Thank you for not making a mess, Michiba-sensei."

The older man politely bowed to her as Sōun began to moan about the need to unite the schools. "Do not apologize, Kasumi-san. I knew all along something was fishy concerning your father's 'mastery'. Why you tolerated this, Sensei, I'll never understand," he then said as he gazed on Happōsai. "How could you let this man run around proclaiming what he wasn't?"

The aged grandmaster sighed. "I have made many a mistake in my time, Hatatsu-kun," he lamented. "One of them was to think I could free Negako-chan from that effective prison she had been put into ages ago. Their punishment for me was to make me need to absorb female ki to such an extent that I could have died if I didn't get some sort of frequent 'shot'." He shook his head. "Ah, well. Negako-chan was freed thanks to these Noukiites she told me of after she and Ataru-kun were fired back in time like they were to get away from the aliens. A pity Genma's sloppy teaching and his arrogance so influenced young Ranma that he would probably have never conceived of seeking help from Negako-chan when he started to weaken."

"You let...Ranma die...!"

Happōsai snorted. " _ **You**_ made that decision together, Sōun. The instructions were there, loud and clear. You are to NEVER make use of that incense burner when it comes to dealing with someone cursed at Jusenkyō. I KNOW both you and Genma can read Mandarin!" As Sōun sputtered in pained protest at that shifting of the blame onto his shoulders for the death of his would-be son-in-law, the aged grandmaster rose from his floor cushion. "Ah, well! Maybe I'll have time to find some other worthy student to pass on things before I finally pass on. Kasumi-chan, if I were you, I'd move out of this house immediately. Get Nabiki-chan and Akane-chan out of here, too. The farther you're all away from this idiot, the better."

"Oh, it'll be alright, Ojii-san," Kasumi said. "I've already contacted Okā-san's father to make arrangements to relocate to his own home in Itabashi." As Sōun croaked in shock, his daughter glared at him. "I fed you a special herb that Shānpú was so nice to give me to keep you down for the time being, Otō-san. It was in your tea." As her father gasped on hearing how easily she had stabbed him in the back, Kasumi's smile then turned very icy. "You have no access to your demon head ability anymore...and you won't be able to make use of any of your hidden fighting skills for the next twenty-four hours. Given the concussion that Michiba-sensei just gave you, even _**I**_ could beat you down now. That will give us more than enough time to make sure you wind up ALONE here by the end of the day. Fortunately, a friend of Kanami-san's was willing to come to make sure you behave. Mister Mayor, Michiba-sensei, I think you can finally go. She was supposed to be here an hour ago..."

Knocks echoed from outside. "Ah! She's here now!" Kasumi said as she rose, bowed to her guests, then headed outside.

Ignoring the pained sobs escaping his still-living student at the idea of being made to live alone without any support from his precious children, Happōsai shook his head as he lit up his pipe — filled with a special herbal solution that Moroboshi Negako had prepared for him months ago as she started the treatment to help him recover fully from what befell him over a century ago — then he sighed in contentment. Heavy footfalls then echoed from outside as the aged grandmaster's own ki senses were nearly overwhelmed by the huge battle aura of what was now approaching the house. "Holy...!" he hissed out as the ward manager gasped in awe and the Dōjō Destroyer nearly gaped in disbelief on sensing what was coming in now.

"It seems that this Musashi has kept you waiting, Kasumi-dono. This Musashi has arrived!"

"Please come in, Musashi-sama."

Hearing that declaration, Sōun croaked as the ominous sound of a super-battleship cracking her knuckles echoed in his ears...

Seconds later, a shriek of near-mortal agony nearly rattled every window in Nerima out of their frames!

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **I'sagh** — Healer; **Eii'sagh** — Literally "second-rank healer", what would be used to address a nurse or physician's assistant; **Buon pomeriggio** — Good afternoon; **WAVES** — Short for "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service", the acronym for members of the **United States Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve)** ; **SP** — Shore patrol; **BDM** — Short for " **Bund Deutscher Mädel** " (League of German Girls); **Kyūmagun** — Short for " **Kyūshū Teimajutsu-gun** " (Imperial Magical Commandery of Kyūshū, AKA the Kyūshū Magical Association).

A big nod of thanks to _**IJNFleetadmiral**_ , the writer of _Gaijin Teitoku_ , for his creation of the shipgirl version of **USS** _ **Long Beach**_ ( **Naomi "Cass" Haight-Ashbury** ).

 **Celebration City** is derived from the official tag line used for the city of **Norfolk** in Virginia: "Life, Celebrated Daily".

The version of **USS** _ **Mississippi**_ ( **Joanna Wilkinson** ) shown here is inspired by the version of her as introduced in _**Victory Belles**_ , a Western-made version of _KanColle_ that is still in the planning stages.

The **Gyokuon-h** **ōsō** ("Jewel Voice Broadcast") is the first public speech made by **Shōwa Tennō** (1901-89) to his subjects. Broadcast over radio at noon Tōkyō time on 15 August 1945, it was where the late Heavenly Sovereign declared his intentions to accept the **Potsdam Agreement** issued by the Allied powers on 26 July that year, thus bring the Pacific side of World War Two to a close. Said broadcast was composed of the words of the **Daitōa-sensō Shūketsu no Shōsho** ("Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the Greater East Asia War"). This is why 15 August is seen as **VJ Day** ("Victory over Japan Day").

The name I created for the **Dōjō Destroyer** , **Michiba Hatatsu** , was first introduced in _Phoenix From the Ashes_.

Shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **GERMANY  
**_ **DMS Tirpitz** — Maria Augusta von Tirpitz

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Mississippi** — Joanna Alberta Wilkinson  
 **USS Long Beach** — Ellen Naomi Michelle "Cass" Haight-Ashbury


	17. One of the Three Comes to Tomobiki

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **The Trischen Academy of Magic, Wednesday 24 May, an hour after breakfast (Japan time: Two hours before supper)...**_

"Crazy One...?"

"Crazy One...!"

Two Abyssal princesses born on either sides of Eurasia blinked, then they shuddered as they glanced around the reception hall of the magical school for the Kingdom of Hannover and neighbouring trade cities, as if they were afraid that the one cruiser that earned that nickname from all Abyssals alive would come out of nowhere to swamp them with things that just didn't compute. While both Hoppō and Trista had matured in much more supportive environments than other installation princesses — the former rescued by the most famous warships of two countries, then adopted by the flagship of Japan's shipgirl corps, gaining a wonderful adopted big brother at the same time; the latter living in happiness with her flotilla of cruisers and destroyers, enjoying relations with a regiment's worth of war golems with the ability to unleash much destruction yet capable of warmth and love — they inherited their sisters' fear of "Mama Cass", the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser christened Naomi Haight-Ashbury by the last host of the Earth Angel who served the American Navy as U.S.S. _Long Beach_.

Staring at the two shivering child Abyssals, Saratoga sighed before she exchanged a look with Nagato. Who — after getting the chance to cuddle with her adopted daughter and her adopted daughter's new friend, but with several of the younger-looking war golems, who were just as cute as the dickens — managed to finally suppress that urge nicknamed "Nagamon" inside her heart and regain control over herself. "First the 'Angry One', then the 'Crazy One'," the second of the Lexington-class carriers mused before she sipped the tea made by one of the golems who had taken over the kitchens that had been manned by house elves when eager students attended classes in years past. "How many other weird things are out there?"

Nagato shook her head. "I can't say, Dionne," the battleship breathed out. "I am glad, though. Yoiko-san, the Ryūseizen, now this one..." She sighed as she grasped her girlfriend's hand. "Is it a sign that the Kami approve of all this?"

"Well, God approves of us, Reiko," Saratoga teased.

The two shipgirls, once-enemies whose lives as warships ended thanks to the Baker Test during Operation: Crossroads in 1946, exchanged looks, then they shared a warm kiss. Both perked as they sensed two pairs of glowing crimson eyes lock on them, though they didn't stop kissing. Given their duties at Yokosuka and out on the high seas, the chances that the battleship known also as Yamamoto Reiko and the aircraft carrier known also as Dionne Doolittle got to be together and be a couple were rare. They did love each other as much as their adopted son and daughter loved them and they them in return. They dreamt of the time when the war was over with Abyssals pacified or eliminated, when they could stop being human warships, get married and raise their own family, much like Mutsu was moving to do with John Richardson in Sasebo right now...

"Whoa! More free love! This is too radical!"

Hoppō gasped as Trista squealed in fear before the latter dived under the long skirt of her new friend's "Sara-papa", causing Saratoga to yelp in shock before she spun around to see the slender light cruiser standing nearby, a cooing phoenix on her shoulder. Seeing that, Albus Dumbledore could only gape in surprise. "My! You're bonded to a phoenix as well, Commander?!" the headmaster asked as he came over, making Long Beach look at him with slightly pained eyes.

"Hey, man! NO ONE should bond with a phoenix!" the cruiser protested as Hoppō remained rooted in place, staring in mortal terror at this strange creature that had haunted the nightmares of Abyssals for a year. Nearby, several of the Ne-class heavy cruisers who were the big hitters in Trista's fleet were also frozen in place; even if Long Beach didn't have the armour that older cruisers possessed, she had both RIM-67 Standard ER and RGM-84 Harpoon missiles which allowed her to strike targets out to a hundred miles. And she had the right to carry the same Mark XLVI mesonium warheads battleships from Canada used over the last half-decade to destroy the wreckage of all nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed warships sunk by the Abyssals before and during Blood Week, having used them to deal with "square" installations that tried to hurt defenceless people. "It ain't right! Beautiful ones like this one are in tune with the Astral Plane! We mere mortals have no right to be enslaving these ones!" She shrugged as the phoenix who teleported her here from Sasebo warbled in amused laughter before it flashed away. "Peace, friend!" Long Beach called out, waving the "V" sign before she gave the headmaster a shrug. "My voice told me she was available to take me here to see the free love between Reiko and Dionne, not to mention see all the free love between the beautiful ones Miss Linn kept here and little Trista's fleet of cruisers." Here, she gave the nearby cruisers a knowing look.

As the cruisers suddenly found themselves blushing at the supportive look the visitor gave them, Dumbledore chuckled. "Your respect for them is admirable, young lady," the headmaster then moderated in a soothing voice. "Still, I never forced myself on Fawkes when we bonded, Commander. The very idea of doing that is as quite repugnant to me as it certainly is to you." He then perked as a flash of fire from nearby allowed his own old friend to emerge after teleporting over from Hogwarts.

Fawkes didn't come alone.

"Onii-chan!" Hoppō cried out as she raced over to place herself close to Harry Potter, immediately positioning her body between her beloved brother and the Crazy One. "Onii-chan stay still! Crazy One here! Hoppō will save Onii-chan!"

The Boy Who Lived — who had been asked to come visit Trischen by Dumbledore so he could be there for his sister as she made a new friend — blinked before he looked up at the tall and slender cruiser in the psychedelic camouflage nearby. His eyes went wide — Hoppō had regaled him about the Crazy One who had appeared just before he began attending Hogwarts, repeating what she sensed from installation princesses elsewhere — then he looked at her clothing once more. Seeing the peace symbols painted on her armoured thigh-highs, he smiled as he moved around Hoppō to stand before the lone cruiser of her class. "Peace!" he called out, flashing the "V" sign adopted by the peace generation of the 1960s as a way to show their support for the end of the Vietnam War and a change in society that could have ended the Cold War two decades earlier.

A smile answered him as she raised her hand to make the sign. "Peace, Little Bro! How are classes at that funky castle?! They teaching you good stuff or are they trying to make you be a square like the sparkles back in the States?"

"Albus, who on Earth is this?" a dour voice then asked.

Dumbledore looked over as Severus Snape came up to join him. "May I present Commander Naomi Haight-Ashbury of the United States Navy, Severus," the headmaster stated, making the cruiser look a little pained at being addressed that way. "She prefers to be called 'Cass' or 'Mama Cass' in salute to that delightful singer of the Mamas and the Papas, Madame Cass Eliot. She is the spirit of United States Ship _Long Beach_ , a veteran of that horrible conflict in Vietnam and the first Gulf War."

Snape blinked before his eyes went wide. "The _**nuclear**_ cruiser...?!"

"My reactors are all meson-powered now, man. Be cool!" Long Beach said as Harry gaped in awe at her, then she walked over to gaze intently at the potions master. As he fought down the urge to use his Legilimency on her — doing that once to the British battlecruiser Hood had nearly driven him into a coma after he was just overwhelmed by the sheer tsunami of memories and thoughts from the THOUSANDS who had been involved in the creation, service and final sinking of that particular warship — a nod twitched the cruiser's head. "Groovy hairstyle, man! Nice grease, too! You're the potions boss, right?!" At his nod while he tried to not blush at those compliments, Long Beach smiled. "Gotta always do safety first, right?!"

His jaw dropped for a second before he chuckled, nodding. "Indeed, Cass." As Dumbledore gaped in surprise on sensing the normally-reserved potions master accept the quite unique cruiser so easily, Snape added, "Given the potential fire hazard, I've worked on many formulas to keep my hair intact in case a fire does break out and I'm caught in it." He then gazed at Harry. "Yes, Mister Potter. You can tell all your friends in Gryffindor that I DO bathe and shower regularly."

Harry shook his head. "I still don't get why people say that about you, sir."

"He once had the bad paint on his arm, Little Bro," Long Beach reminded him. "Soon as the Earth Child smoked that pig that tricked Severus into fighting the bad fight, he didn't have to act like a square." She shrugged. "Except when it's proper. Especially when you're protecting the little ones when they're trying to learn all the life-saving stuff you can teach them."

"Indeed," Snape said with a sage nod.

"Onii-chan...said 'Peace' with Crazy One...?"

That was a dizzy Hoppō, who was swaying in shock as she tried to understand how her own brother could communicate with the Crazy One. Harry gazed at her, then he sighed. "Hoppō-chan," he said in a soothing voice as he walked over to squeeze her shoulder in reassurance, making her stop shivering. As she gazed at him, he waved at Long Beach. "Sure, she's pretty unique! But all shipgirls are unique! Why are you always calling her 'crazy'? She doesn't seem crazy to me!"

She rapidly shook her head. "Onii-chan doesn't understand...!"

"Crazy One scares Trista's sisters!"

Eyes locked on Trista, who was peeking out from behind the flaps of Saratoga's skirt. "Holy...!" Harry then gasped, his eyes wide. "Is this why you wanted me to come here, Professor?" he asked Dumbledore. "When did she show up?"

"She was just detected last night by our Luftwaffe friends, Harry," the headmaster stated. "Given your prior experience with young Hoppō, Luise von Bismarck was hoping that you might be able to make some inroads with young Trista."

The Boy Who Lived blinked before he nodded in understanding. As Snape smirked on noting his late best friend's son was gathering his Gryffindor courage to do what had been asked, Harry walked over to stand close to his adopted mother and her girlfriend. "Hi! I'm Hoppō's big brother Harry! You're Trista, right?!" he said as he held out his hand, making the cowering child princess blink before her cheeks flushed grey. "Don't be scared! Mama Cass wants to love people!"

Trista blinked before she slowly pulled herself out into the open...

...just as the flash of more phoenix fire caused people's heads to snap over.

"Ah! Hello, Mama Cass!"

Harry blinked on seeing who had just been teleported into the main reception hall: A girl looking to be a little younger than he, possessing long, wavy blonde hair and the most expressive pale silver eyes that anyone had ever seen. Dressed in modern normal clothing, she nodded her thanks to the phoenix who teleported her from Ottery Saint Catchpole in Devonshire. In her hand was a writing tablet, a quill tucked behind one of her earlobes. "Thank you kindly," she said in a wispy voice which made the phoenix coo before he vanished in a flash of fire. She then walked over to warmly embrace Long Beach by the legs.

"Hey, Little Sis," the cruiser greeted as she reached down to gently ruffle the hair of who Dumbledore and Snape realized was Xenophilius and Pandora Lovegood's only child, Luna. Due to be invited to her freshman year in the fall when Harry would start his second year, the young girl had nearly seen her mother die from a backfired spell while she was doing research for the Department of Mysteries. Fortunately for them, the Great War super-dreadnought Conqueror had been visiting the magical side of the town near Exeter at that time, having heard about a monster who had been hurting people in nearby normal towns and villages. After one of her faerie scouts flying a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter reconnaissance aircraft spotted the wounded witch through the window of the Lovegood home, the third of the Orion-class raced in to have her medical staff keep her stable until aurors came to get her to Saint Mungo's to be healed. That had forever endeared the four monster-hunting super-dreadnoughts working for MI6 to Luna and her parents, which encouraged the young girl to expand her horizons and strive to understand the incredible world of the shipgirls. Her interviews with shipgirls of a dozen nations boosted circulation of the _Quibbler_ , the private monthly news magazine the Lovegood family published, across wizarding Europe...and would eventually bring Luna to the attention of a certain American missile cruiser. "How are your parents?" Long Beach added. "Still rad?"

"Still rad," Luna affirmed with a nod, then she looked over before smiling. "Ohayō gozaimasu, Yamamoto-san," she said with a bow to Harry, which made him nod in return, surprised to be addressed by his adopted family name.

"Ohayō, Ojō-sama," Harry greeted back. "Er...?" A business card was handed over. "Oh! Sumimasen, Lovegood-san," he said as he bowed again to her. "The _Quibbler_? You're a reporter for the _Quibbler_?! European shipgirls love that magazine!"

"Naturally," Luna affirmed.

"Miss Lovegood, tell me something," Snape then declared. "In your recent articles about the shipgirls, would your referencing to the 'Moon Sea Wanderer' in those articles actually speaking of Cass here?" He indicated Long Beach.

Luna nodded. "Yes, Professor. Mama Cass always listens to the voice of Magic Itself — to her, the voice of the Astral Planes that all her generation sought to touch — which guide her to places where she can bring free love to the Abyssals and make them stop hurting people. Since President Bartlet wanted to keep her existence secret from normal and magical alike, Dad created that phrase. Even if her story needs to be told to let free love flower all over the world and bring peace, given how many normals have wanted to protect us, we did what was right and kept Mama Cass' name and ship name out of the picture. At least WE'RE responsible members of the press. Not like those squares that run the _Daily Prophet_!"

"Righteous!" the cruiser in question declared.

Both Hoppō and Trista exchanged looks. "Two Crazy Ones?" the former asked.

"Trista not sure," the latter breathed out.

Nagato and Saratoga laughed on hearing that...

* * *

 _ **In one of the old dorm rooms...**_

"Merlin, this is just incredible...!"

Hearing that comment from the beautiful older version of Pansy Parkinson who had used her magic to examine the lovely war golem who had bonded herself with her, Bismarck smirked. "Far beyond even your expectations, Frau Burggräfin?"

Violet Parkinson chuckled as she stowed her wand. Now that Trischen was seen as "secure", she and Allana Greengrass had teleported over from Britain to help in the examination of Linn Heinrich's and Johannes Vogt's incredible creations. "Truly beyond our expectations, Lady von Bismarck," the current matriarch of the Noble and Ancient House of Parkinson then said as she gazed in sheer awe at Aimée Süssmann, trying not to shake her head. "You're practically as human as one born of a mother's womb, Miss Süssmann," she declared, which made the golem flush in embarrassment. "When Professor Vogt created you, did he replicate the memories of a muggle to make you as realistic in your mind and soul as you are in body?"

"Not any one single normal person, Burggräfin von Parkinson," Aimée answered with a shrug. "Our possessing mesonium in our bodies was actually in defiance of the Führer's orders to only allow Rittmeister von Taserich's helpers to make use of that material during the war. To create new Übermenschen, of course." As Violet nodded, the golem added, "However, the Academy had its own sources. After Linn had such success with Elsa and her sisters, she found other normal people to copy memories, then pool them together to generate unique personalities for all of us. This, as the professor hoped, would allow us to better operate in the field when we were called to perform our proper duties to protect the Fatherland."

"My intelligence staff spent time questioning Aimée to get a better feeling towards where she could call home," Bismarck added as she tried not to blush at what else she had done with the golem while they were alone. "I'd say she's a native of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern." At the witch's confused look, the first of her class of fast battleships translated, "Mecklenburg and West Pomerania. Where the Rittmeister lives when he's on Earth." At Violet's nod, Bismarck smirked. "This will heat up the debate in the Bundestag and the Magische Bundesrat as they debate over what sort of legal rights we'll have when the war is finally over. We may not be as conservative as your people have been shown to be, but there are the voices against us."

Pansy's mother slowly nodded, a tired look crossing her face. "Yes, there are times I too wonder what we'll do when we're all forced to face that question about you people," she noted. "Don't get me wrong, Captain. The fact that your friend's sister is now pregnant with that American admiral's children lends credibility to the 'shipgirls are human' argument that's been raised. While Minister Fudge and Minister Bagnold before him always pleaded with the Prime Minister to not get the Queen to use her reserve powers to declare British shipgirls as 'human' via Magical Royal Proclamation, I'm sure Amelia Bones will simply back off and leave it be. The same with your own president, I believe. He has that power as well."

"Ja, the Bundespräsident does have that power as was guaranteed in the magical side of the Grundgesetz, Frau Burggräfin. Like Her Majesty, he would prefer to not act unilaterally. He supports legal rights for us. After all, the Bundestag and the Magische Bundesrat acknowledged the rights of our country's Avalonian population once those Niphentaxians were cleared out of the country by Markgräfin Negako and her friends from Yiziba. In body, I'm no different than an Avalonian even if my metahuman powers are different. Aimée is a synthetic humanoid, but she has a spirit in her; you just proved it when you examined her. Don't the Avalonians have the ability to shift souls into new bodies if they feel it necessary?"

Violet nodded. "Yes, they do. Once they learned about that whole concept and how easy it was for one's soul to be shifted into a new body, the mugalophobes in the Wizengamot wanted to declare it a 'dark' practice and outlaw it. Fortunately, the Queen announced her intentions around Yule to welcome them as Her Subjects with full legal rights, which really put a twist into selfish idiots like Dolores Umbridge." A distasteful look crossed the raven-haired woman's face. Like many members of Britain's magical legislature and their spouses, she had no use for the now-comatose senior undersecretary, rendered that way by the Canadian battleship Erinsville in vengeance over what Umbridge had secretly tried to do to block any attempts by "A" Commando of the Royal Canadian Foresters from making any social inroads with British magicals by having them killed in battle against the Abyssals early on in the general war against the dark sea spirits before shipgirls came.

An arched eyebrow answered her. "Without them, who will protect us from the aliens?"

"That's true."

"Mum...?"

Violet looked over, then she gaped. "Pansy! What are you doing here?!"

Aimée beamed on seeing the cute girl with the pug-like nose run into the room. After sharing a hug with her mother, Pansy moved to sit on the bed to Bismarck's port. "Professor Dumbledore's phoenix is bringing all of us from the freshman class here. We just got told about Lady Trista and what Captain von Bismarck wanted Harry to do to keep things calm." She looked around. "Never thought I'd ever visit the Trischen Academy. Didn't we have relatives who went here?"

"Yes, back when the union of the crowns between Britain and Hanover existed," Violet noted with a nod. "They should reopen the school once young Trista is convinced that we don't mean her and her fleet any harm. This was the best school in all of the Holy Roman Empire when it was in full operation. Could have won recognition from the ICW if those idiots in Durmstrang didn't raise a stink over bringing a school of 'muggle-lovers' into the fold of the 'official' schools."

"That's the Norwegian school, isn't it?" Bismarck asked.

A chuckle answered Violet. "They'll say they can recruit from all of Scandinavia and central Europe, Captain. Not so surprising as the current Highmaster — who was one of Lucius' friends in his 'club' — is a descendant of Russian nobles that Marshal Múrometsa's people chased out of that country during their Civil War while the muggles fought the Great War." At Bismarck's concerned look, Violet waved her down. "He did repudiate what he did for Riddle, Captain. His magic is whole, just like Lucius' magic and that of his friends are. But he's still a blood-purist. The governors of that school's board would NEVER condone allowing muggleborns to attend." She shrugged. "Because of that, many magicals go to other schools."

The battleship nodded. She had immediately guessed that Pansy's mother knew all along that Bismarck would be mentally recording this conversation for review by the intelligence staff serving the Inspekteur der Flottenmädchen at Mürwik, Vizeadmiral Walther Hartmann of Frankfurt am Main in Hessen. Given that Parkinson Enterprises had just been revealed to be owned by Violet's husband Malcolm, the fact that this pureblood witch descent from an illustrious line was comfortable dealing with "muggle" issues was a sign of hope. Like many shipgirls, the fast battleship had no real issues with magicals as a whole. It was their _**leadership**_ in many places that desperately needed to get with the times finally and prepare magicals worldwide for the day they couldn't hide behind the Statute of Secrecy anymore. While there was a lot of hope in Germany and elsewhere, most European magicals tended to bow a lot to Britain given that nation was one of the few to escape the ravages of the Magische Reichsarmee, much less the invading hordes of the Seventh Cavalry Division of the United States Army and the Moskvá Mágicheskie Front who came in to help put Gellert Grindelwald down before the summer after VE Day. With a selfish idiot like Cornelius Fudge out of the way because of his refusal to recognize his Queen's supreme authority over him, hopefully the next person to take that office would be smarter and start making the necessary preparations.

"I wouldn't go to Durmstrang," Pansy noted. "Much that Hogwarts has its issues, they're minor compared to that place. I wish King Harald would use his own power to make Highmaster Kárkarov finally conform to the reality of the world."

"I thought they were dealt with in '43 when Danni and her company went up there to clean that place out finally," Aimée noted.

At Bismarck's confused look, Violet explained, "Major Danielle Larssen is one of the Norwegians who volunteered to fight for Master Gellert. She was a jäger company commander in the First Battalion under Colonel Anna Wittmann..."

"That battalion's in Japan now," the battleship noted.

Pansy's mother nodded. "She was top of the Mistress' Class at Læsø Søfort in 1937...but because she was a 'mudblood', the old guard at Durmstrang did their best to keep her down and retain some influence over the Royal Danish Ministry of Magic." At Bismarck's scowling look, Violet sighed. "I know. That's how bad it was back then. I can't blame the major or her sister Alexandra — she's a major in the Fourth Battalion under Jessica Gibbon — for joining Master Gellert. Despite his many faults, Master Gellert really believed in the betterment of all magicals regardless of ancestry. Both Majors Larssen led an attack on Durmstrang that nearly destroyed the whole school and eliminated a lot of conservative pureblood leaders that wanted to enforce that loyalty stone concept all over Europe." At the battleship's shocked gasp, Violet nodded. "I know you spent time in Japan, Captain. You've met Mistress Tsukiko. Believe me, while no one would really dare say it these days out in public where 'stalebloods' might overhear it, many conservative purebloods in Britain really appreciate her making light of what her people discovered in Vietnam and elsewhere in 1937. She probably did much to save magicals worldwide by fighting that war."

A moan escaped the battleship, though she perked as Aimée's hand squeezed her shoulder in support. "Lieber Gott! How could you people live with all that hypocrisy?! It sounded just as bad as the Nazis were back then!"

"Never show your cards unless you have to, Captain," Pansy noted...

...then she perked on hearing a scampering sound echo from the hallway beyond the door. Bismarck instantly tensed as her radar locked on target, then she relaxed as a familiar return came back to her. "Be calm," she said as Violet and Pansy drew their wands. "This one is not part of Frau Trista's fleet, but one of the strays my sister encountered in the North Sea sometime ago. No doubt, Maria got the news of what was discovered here, then came down to investigate this herself."

As both witches slowly nodded while putting their wands away, a shark-shaped head peeked through the doorway, that marking the bow end of the Na-class destroyer that had become the unofficial flotilla leader of Tirpitz's new "escort squadron". "Flagship Sister!" the destroyer squealed in delight before she scampered over to rub her bow against Bismarck's leg, making the blonde battleship chuckle in delight as she gave the Abyssal destroyer a warm pat on the head to make her feel safe.

"Luisa!"

"In here, Maria!" Bismarck called back.

More scampering was heard as the other destroyers of Tirpitz's new action group — a Ro-class, an I-class, a Ha-class and a Ni-class — came into the room, followed by a silver-haired, grey-eyed version of the namesake of the Iron Chancellor, dressed in a darker uniform reflecting the camouflage she had born in the last couple of years she had served as a warship until Operation: Catechism saw her capsized in the waters off Håkøya near the end of 1944 with over half her crew lost. Though, as was the case with her sister three years earlier off the coast of France, there was a certain sea leviathan-slaying battleship from Canada who had been in the nearby Grøtsundet whose crew had been able to pull half of Tirpitz's "dead" that day.

As the Abyssal destroyers all squealed in delight on seeing their flagship united with her sister, Tirpitz's eyes focused on the pretty girl who was now holding her sister's hand on a bed that looked like it just got some use. "Lieber Gott, Luisa! You mean Amé was right?! You actually got one of these incredible golems as your new spezieller Bootsmann?!" She snickered as she gazed knowingly at Bismarck, who was trying not to blush at her sister's teasing. "Should we get one for Mary, too?!"

"What about you, Frau Kapitän von Tirpitz?"

That was Aimée, who was now rising to approach the silver-haired "lonely queen of the north", her body swaying slowly to make the battleship focus directly on her. As Tirpitz gargled on feeling the golem's sensuous look while Bismarck and the two British witches smirked in delight, Aimée reached over to gently fleck her finger along the younger battleship's exposed neck, making Tirpitz gargle as she felt her knees instantly weaken. "Poor girl, all alone in that cold fjord for all the time you served the Fatherland," the adopted native of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern purred as she gazed intently into those stormy grey eyes, making Tirpitz gulp. "Don't worry, Frau Kapitän. You've come to the right place to find a warm companion of your own, not just for you but to help care for these poor little ones here." She gazed sympathetically at the small squad of Abyssals, who were gazing in confusion at this strange being now acting lewd close to their own flagship. "So...!"

Footsteps made Bismarck turn around...

...then she gaped in awe at the hazel-eyed, slightly tanned girl now standing at the doorway. Like Aimée, she was dressed in the old uniform of a German airborne infantry soldier, no rank on her tunic. She had dirty blonde hair with dark tips that formed a lovely halo around a perfect face. However, unlike Bismarck's new companion, this one seemed a little tired and weak, as if she hadn't been able to sleep for a while. That was quickly picked up on by Tirpitz. "Meine Dame! Are you hurt?!" the younger fast battleship asked as she moved to steady the newcomer while her destroyers squealed in sympathy at what their flagship was doing to this pretty creature who had just come in. "What's wrong?! You look ill! Here, sit down!" she bade as she shifted the newcomer over to sit on a nearby couch as several of her faeries, all in medical uniforms, appeared on her shoulders and moved to render aid. "Luisa, what's wrong with her?! If this is one of Frau Majorin Heinrich's creations..."

"N-nein, meine Freifrau..." the newcomer said as she tried not to swoon on feeling the battleship's magic start to surge into her even if they weren't touching skin-to-skin. "Please, meine Freifrau...a kiss...I need a kiss...!"

Tirpitz's cheeks instantly reddened. "What...?!"

"The original bond for these poor girls was broken when their creator died while he was a captive of the Soviets, Maria," Bismarck stated. "They can't bond with any of Frau Trista's destroyers due to their not being human in body as we are. They need our magic to stay alive. Much that I do understand what Aimée was ultimately also built for, she really means no harm, as will..." Her voice then trailed off as she gazed a question at the golem who had bonded with her earlier that day.

"Rebecca," Aimée supplied. "Rebecca Laurie." At Tirpitz's confused look on hearing an English name for a golem created in Germany, Bismarck's new companion added, "She was conditioned to infiltrate Allied ranks to attack from behind."

The silver-haired battleship blinked again as she took that in, then she gazed into the face of the shuddering golem now holding her hand. Looking at the destroyers, who were all staring in hope at her — no doubt, the little ones understood Rebecca's distress and had come to believe their "flagship" would do the right thing — the lonely queen of the North took a deep breath. "Don't you DARE laugh, Luisa!" she muttered under her breath before she slowly leaned closer to Rebecca.

A second later, a brilliant flash of energy exploded through the nearby window...

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, that moment...**_

"Um...who is she, Yoiko?"

Yonaga was trying not to vent out her outrage at what she just found in her bedroom.

"Someone I was introduced to two days ago in Nerima, Sonia-san."

That dry comment from the carrier made Arizona gape. "You mean...?"

"One of the students of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School," the seventh carrier of Operation Z said with an annoyed tone. "May I present Hyūji Makoto, former member of Class 1-W in that school a year ago, just before young Arisugawa-dono and her friend Hirato-dono got their friends and teachers off that island and to safety in Nerima. When Akemi-san and I met them, Arisugawa-dono triggered Hyūji-dono's hypnosis to demonstrate what that yakuza Murata did to them all." She then gazed on the peacefully sleeping girl now lying on the raised deck of her own quarters. "No doubt, she felt she had not 'finished the mission' and came here to be my personal companion. Since I was distracted by other things..."

Standing by the doorway, Master Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Beckett shook his head. "We have enough alert wards all over this base to detect a flea slipping in here!" the magical naval infantry soldier from Chicago spat. "How in Merlin's name...?!"

"Look at this, Master Gunnery Sergeant."

Eyes locked on Sergeant Sarah Mason, who was waving her wand to do a detailed scan of the sleeping former high school freshman. A moment later, a ghostly parchment appeared before both magicals, making Beckett hiss out in horror as Mason shook her head in disbelief. "Oh, Merlin...!" the half-Swedish native of Urbana moaned. "She's got enough ebony meson in her blood to make her equal to the readings taken from President Lincoln during the Score and Four! How on Earth...?!"

"Wait, Sarah! Look there!"

The shipgirls blinked as Beckett waved his own wand, doing a deep probe of the sleeping girl's head. "Ruby meson crystal in her cerebellum," the native of Chicago then stated. "No doubt, it filters all the waves of feelings the ebony meson in her blood constantly floods her brain with. Once her soul got used to the idea of being a sex slave..." — here, he ignored the twin gasps of shock from the two recently summoned standard battleships from the age of the Great War who had accompanied Yonaga and Arizona to the carrier's quarters — "...any sort of feeling that might have made her lash out at anyone was instantly transformed into an urge to seduce. Damn! Whoever developed this scheme was either a genius or a lunatic...!"

"Probably both, Master Gunny," Pennsylvania muttered as she crossed her arms, sending her sister's new girlfriend Matsuhara Keiko a concerned look. As the nurse hugged the younger standard's arm while gazing in silent horror at the younger girl who had "volunteered" to serve as her current host's lover, the namesake of the Keystone State then looked at Mississippi and Tennessee. "The asshole who did this was the grandson of a guy in that bio-warfare unit that was active in Manchuria before and during the war," she explained, earning her twin looks of disgust. "Keiko was also a victim until she gave Sonia the kiss that upgraded her systems. There's another nurse that wants me; she's with the rest of that particular crowd over at the school Ataru and Negako live at now. This girl's friends are now in Yokosuka being watched over by the Foresters and the local magicals to make sure they don't end up bedding a destroyer or anyone 'younger'." As the namesakes of two Southern states both scowled on hearing that, the older battleship shook her head. "Just to warn you in case you get a 'visitor'..."

Mississippi hissed out, "Disgusting...!"

"Heard the rumours about comfort women who were there for local troops during the war," Tennessee muttered. "Then again, were our crews so different in the end? After a long time out at sea, there was need for relief..."

"Hopefully, those lovers your crews sought out when they were on shore leave weren't victims of rape like Keiko and her friends here, much less that poor girl and her teachers and classmates," Arizona quietly said as she gazed upon her companion, who blushed in return at that concerned look. "Master Gunnery Sergeant, couldn't the same sort of potions that Captain Chennalton gave Keiko here work on Miss Hyūji as well? Much less the others here and in Yokosuka?"

Beckett blinked before he sighed. "Was rather pants at potions at Ilvermorny, Lieutenant Owings," he mused. "Sarah?"

"The captain gave me the actual potions regime she used for Nurse Matsuhara, Master Gunnery Sergeant," Mason stated. "I can get a batch brewed up for all of the nurse's friends and Miss Hyūji within a day."

"Get on it."

"Aye-aye."

The adopted native of Urbana walked out of the room. Yonaga watched her go, then she tensed as a soft moan escaped her would-be "lover". "Are you alright, Makoto-san?" the carrier then softly asked as the teenage track star's eyes fluttered.

Makoto's eyes opened to reveal a pair of lucid chestnut brown orbs. "Wh-where am I...?" the native of Ōsaka moaned as she looked around before she blinked as she took in the rather austere surroundings. "What is this place...?"

Her eyes then fixed on the tall, muscular carrier in the very traditional martial artist's clothing standing nearby. They briefly widened as Makoto took in the severe yet beautiful features of the fifth of the Yamato-class, then her eyes started to glaze over. "No! Miss Hyūji, please! Control yourself!" Arizona snapped, causing the track star to jolt. "You're better than this! Control yourself! Don't let that monster force you into doing such horrible things! Control yourself!"

Makoto blinked several times as her body swayed, flashes of self-control appearing in her eyes demonstrating that her "real" soul was fighting hard to regain control over herself. As MGySgt Beckett grasped his wand in preparation to stun the teenager should she lose that fight, the daughter of one of Ōsaka's more prominent industrialists shuddered before she shook her head. "Oh, God..." she then croaked out as bile rose up in her throat and her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. "Not again...!"

A powerful hand gently grasped her shoulder to steady her. "Be calm, Makoto-san," Yonaga then urged as several faeries appeared from under the sleeve of her kimono top, all dressed in the green fatigue-like uniforms her crew had worn for all the years they were in Sano-wan. As they all hopped onto the track star's shoulder, the carrier smiled. "Several of my medical staff, including my chief medical officer and chief medical orderly," she explained as Makoto seemed to giggle while the tiny faeries all moved to touch exposed areas of her neck. "Let them look you over. Do not blame Yui-san for doing what she did that sent you down to be with me; she forgot to restore you to 'normal' after that demonstration in Nerima."

The younger woman nodded. "Itō Yoiko, right?"

"That is my human name, yes."

The native of Ōsaka considered that. "Yonaga. Built at Maizuru in secret. Fifth of the Yamato-class, the second one converted to an aircraft carrier. You were seconded to Unit 731 to hide you from foreign spies, then you disappeared in the fall of 1941." She then gazed intently into the taller shipgirl's eyes for a moment. "Where in God's name have you been all this time, Yoiko-san? Your sisters and all the girls who were assigned to the Kidō Butai have been worried sick about you."

Yonaga chuckled as the battleships who had been with her moved to slip off their shoes and sit down on the upper deck. While Beckett came over with his wand to help the medical faeries in the examination of the young track star, Keiko smiled as she moved to sit down in Arizona's lap, causing the copper-haired battleship to madly blush at that show of open attraction by the native of Edogawa. Before people could say anything more, a head peaked into the room. "Hey, Yoiko! You...?! Who the hell's this?!" the second of the Iowa-class battleships then asked as she stared in confusion at the pretty young girl seated there before her eyes focused on the school crest on Makoto's T-shirt. "Oh! 'M.C. High', right?"

"Sadly so, Katharine-san," Yonaga affirmed as Makoto blushed on seeing the most decorated of America's battleships standing there. "May I present Hyūji Makoto-san, formerly of Ōsaka if her accent speaks the truth of her place of birth. I do believe you should also recognize the namesake of the twentieth state to join your Union." Here, she indicated the second of the Idaho-class battleships seated on the upper deck next to Tennessee, who politely smiled at New Jersey.

The fast battleship looked over, then she gaped. "Holy hell, Mudpuppy! When the heck did you get back here?!"

Mississippi sniffed as she gave the younger battleship a disapproving look. "You need not be so insulting, Katharine," she said in a voice that dripped with the same type of scorn an antebellum Southern plantation matron would have unleashed on some fool carpetbagger that dared try to impose himself on her. "It is a rather sad statement on someone such as yourself that our gracious hosts act with more decorum than a Yankee like you. Much less this decrepit old woman here!" As Tennessee laughed and Pennsylvania squawked at such an insult from the other standard, the second of the Idaho-class then gazed at Arizona. "Has she always been like this, Sonia? I shudder to think of what our friends in-country think of her."

"She has been worse, Joanna," the namesake of the Canyon State said, her own voice dripping with disapproval. As Jersey gaped at the standard's words, Arizona then added, "Never mind her disgusting excuse of a sea uniform, her language is simply atrocious especially when she is in the presence of young destroyers and she is often far too boisterous for some of our wonderful allies in country. The many times she has traumatized destroyers from this nation such as Fukushima Fujiko — that's Fubuki, by the way — with her language and unwanted hugs is uncountable. Yes, many of our hosts are quite unique in their own ways, but I have always felt that we must do our best to show the good side of what being American is about." She gazed at Jersey with a gimlet eye. "The only good and decent thing going for the commander here, I will admit, is that she DOES understand her duties when she is called to perform them, which earns her some slack from our hosts."

" _ **HEY!**_ " Jersey yelped.

As Makoto gaped in shock at such verbal sparring between the two battlewagons of the United States, Yonaga smiled in silent amusement at Arizona's verbally taking down the younger fast battleship with such panache. Before someone could say something that might have calmed things down or inflamed them further, a knock at the door made people look over. "Hey! What's with all the bickering here? Who's the girl?" Hayashi Kanami asked as she and Taihō looked inside.

"Pay it no mind, Kanami-san," Yonaga bade as Makoto's eyes went wide in awe on seeing the red-haired martial artist. "Were you and Taeko-san briefed on the issue concerning that Catholic girl's school near Kumamoto?"

" _ **Saotome Ranma**_...?"

Kanami jolted as if she just got zapped by a live wire. "No!" she said in a voice that was as icy as the Arctic in mid-winter. As the other shipgirls save Yonaga and Taihō winced on hearing those tones, the now-Avalonian would-be student of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū moved to walk away. "If you're looking for your 'fiancé', he died a few days ago. I'm not him no matter what other people might say. And I shot the idiot who engaged you to Ranma dead last night. C'mon, Taeko."

She walked away, her lover at her side. Makoto blinked in confusion before she gazed at Yonaga. "I wasn't engaged to Ranma-kun, Yoiko-san," the track star assured. "I met him when he was training near Ōsaka with his friend..."

"I don't know how much you know about her, but Red was magically split off from Ranma six months ago, kid," Jersey stated, a sad look on her face. "She's still Ranma in her soul, but she was denied the right to live the life she had before they got split apart." As Makoto gaped on hearing that, the second of the Iowa-class battleships shrugged. "She volunteered to come be with Taeko there, so she wants nothing to do with anything that reminds her of those idiots in Nerima."

Hearing that made Makoto wince...

* * *

 _ **The Tomobiki Ginza, an hour before supper...**_

"Shinobu-chan!"

Perking on hearing that voice call out to her, Miyake Shinobu turned before she gave the older woman approaching her a faint smile. "Konnichi wa, Oba-san," she said as she bowed her head to Moroboshi Kinshō. "Are you alright?"

A pained look crossed Kinshō's face. "Would you be?"

Noting that, Shinobu nodded in understanding. Much that she had been hurt by a lot of things in the last month or so, her sufferings were minor in comparison to her ex-boyfriend's mother. To come back after a failed attempt at getting Moroboshi Ataru married to Redet Lum...only to find out that her son had been literally pitched back through time, being allowed to effectively live by himself for a year away from any calming influence on him. To come back to realize that Ataru had been able to forever dismiss his feelings not just for his "wife" but for everyone else in Tomobiki, especially the hard-working couple that had birthed and raised him. To come back to learn that Ataru had been involved in things no teenage boy ultimately deserved to go through, things that had affected him so deeply that his entire outlook on life had been transformed in ways that no one who had known him for years could understand what drove the man now. To come back to learn that Ataru had effectively cut all ties with Tomobiki, been legally severed from any control by his parents, turned over to the custody of a being whose true nature no one in Tomobiki understood, then allowed to live hundreds of kilometres away in a navy town on Kyūshū. To come back to learn that in the time he had been separated from his family and friends, Ataru had discovered true love with a _**shipgirl**_ of all beings — an _**Italian**_ one at that, never mind her being a _**battleship**_! — and was now striving to forge a deep relationship with that being in total defiance of what his parents might have wished for their only surviving son...

"So this is Tomobiki. It's not impressive."

Hearing that deadpan voice, Shinobu perked, then turned...

...before visibly wincing on seeing the raven-haired, grey-eyed teenage girl — the raven-haired, grey-eyed _**torpedo cruiser**_! — now standing in front of Esmeralda's, glancing around town with a disdainful look, as if nothing about her was worthy of her notice. Beside her was her chestnut-haired, brown-eyed sister, who had a worried look on her face. Given they were both off-duty, Kitakami and Ōi were in civilian clothes and not their forest green seifuku-like sea uniforms. "Kitakami-san, do you really think it's actually safe to be in this town?" Ōi fretfully asked as she briefly glanced at Shinobu before turning back to fawn over her sister. "Given what all the evil creatures in this place did that hurt Ataru-kun over the years..."

A churlish smile crossed the face of the modified third of the Kuma-class light cruisers. "You mean they might try to target us since we proved to be better friends for Ataru-kun than any of the people who live in this place, Ōitchi?"

"The threats are out there, Kitakami-san."

Kitakami hummed. "Well, if they come, they come. If we can deal with them, all the better. If we can't, Musashi-san should be finished with that idiot over in Nerima, so she could be here right away. And Yonaga-san is just a quick call away."

Ōi trilled out as she considered that. "True..."

With that, both cruisers headed towards Hōya-dōri, the primary north-south business thoroughfare that bisected Tomobiki. Watching them go, Shinobu could only shake her head before she glanced at Ataru's mother, then she winced on seeing the fearful look on the older woman's face on hearing the name of the ship her uncle-in-law had served on as navigation officer...

* * *

 _ **Close to Tomobiki High School, minutes later...**_

"Excuse me, Thoughtmistresses-prime...?"

Kitakami and Ōi perked on hearing that friendly greeting from a side street they were passing, then they stopped to turn and see a beautiful Western girl standing there, dressed quite plainly even if such didn't detract from her wholesome girl-next-door beauty. Both cruisers were quick to sense what she was even before their minds registered the use of the Sagussan term for "sensei" as spoken out in English. "Can we help you, Miss...?" the fourth of her class began.

"Mackenzie Shatner," the pretty brunette with the blue eyes said. "I was one of auxiliary observers here in the 'holy city'," she then added while making finger-quotes with both hands. As both cruisers laughed on hearing that term applied for this town, she sighed. "I'm not sure how much Ataru or Thoughtmistress-prime Negako have briefed you on all of us..."

"You're part of the commune which is led by the local elder mother, Shasta Ianson," Ōi provided. "You're actually a clone of a Niphentaxian observer who acted as his 'sister' while they were living here before Kasuga Ayumu-sama banished them from the planet a day after Ataru-kun was forced back in time and sent to Okusei. Your group had no control over that annihilation device that was buried in the Ginza here. Your group always kept watch over Ataru-kun's so-called 'girlfriend'..."

She didn't glance back to note that said would-be girlfriend had discretely followed them. Fortunately, Shinobu was now too far away to overhear their conversation though she did know who Mackenzie and her friends were; the group had introduced themselves to the "sinful doubter" two days after her return to Earth from Uru, when she learned of the _Book of Lum_ and what had gone into its creation. "She's not as bad as people make her out to be," Mackenzie then chided.

"She thinks she still has the right to influence Ataru-kun's life," Kitakami stated. "Until she loses that attitude, Ataru-kun will continue to see her in the same light he now sees Lum in. Do you want Miyake to face the _**Cyborg**_?!"

That made the adopted native of Whitehorse pale. Like other Avalonians assigned to the "holy city", Mackenzie hadn't known what went on in the outside world even if knowledge of the Abyssals was available through the Internet despite the "news blockage" elements of the Japanese government put over the town in the wake of Lum's moving to Earth full-time. Learning of what the Master of Entropy had done to chose a mortal avatar — and seeing how much the "great evil" had been transformed by that most elemental of all universal kami — had stunned and horrified all the Avalonians living in Tomobiki. While there were hard-cases in town who were so flatly convinced that Moroboshi Ataru was nothing more than the Archfiend brought to life, NO ONE in this part of Nishitōkyō deserved to face a being that had the power to rip apart installation princesses as that dark side of the last host of the Earth Angel had done six times so far since his return home six months ago. Never mind the rivers of blood he helped unleash at Morningstar Plan on Okusei and in liberating Mackenzie's people from slavery...!

"No..."

"Kiko-chan...Otsune-chan..."

Mackenzie gasped, then she spun around. "Konatsu! What in Lyna's name...?!"

Her voice then caught in her throat as an explosive burst of pure, raw _**lust**_ escaped the heart of the young woman who had just come up to join them from the direction of Mackenzie's home. As both cruisers' cheeks reddened instantly on sensing that wave — while they didn't have Avalonian psionic powers, their own metahuman senses could detect such a powerful burst of energy — which seemed to flood their bodies with such power, it made their hearts nearly burst and nearly overwhelmed the faeries born from the souls of their lost crews. "Oh, Lyna...!" the Avalonian-Canadian private school English teacher moaned out. "I told you to stay put, Konatsu! You know you need the chance to learn how to properly master your powers!"

"It's alright, Mackenzie-san," Kitakami said as she held up a hand. "I can help her. Negako-san was quite happy to teach all the cruisers what to do if they should happen to encounter one of your people undergoing their 'time of the month'." With that, the third of the Kuma-class smiled as she walked up to stare into the beautiful blue eyes of the stylishly-dressed and slender girl of about sixteen, with beautiful shaggy brown hair swept up in a ponytail hanging over her left temple by a barrette embossed by two crimson stars. Giving her a reassuring smile, Kitakami reached down to gently grasp the shivering girl's hand, causing her to croak as she sensed the other woman's powerful mind instantly reach into her own hull to sense out what lay within the shipgirl known to close friends as Kumamoto Kiko. "Relax, Konatsu-chan. It's alright. I'm here for you now."

Hearing that, Ōnishi Konatsu blinked before her cheeks reddened. "I felt it."

An eyebrow arched in return. "When your brother made me a woman?"

As Shinobu — who had finally got within hearing range — croaked out in disbelief on hearing that the third of the Kuma-class cruisers had been another "conquest" by her former boyfriend, Konatsu took a deep breath. "H-hai," she stuttered out. "We were all bound to him once our souls got dumped into these bodies. The idiots who captured us when Redet and Aruka were going crazy with the clone guns didn't realize what was really going on with Aniki. When he got fired back in time..."

Kitakami and Ōi both winced. "Getting that bond cut...!" the latter hissed.

"And immediately reformed that same instant...with a WHOLE YEAR of memories crashing down on us all at once," Konatsu finished as Shinobu looked pale and Mackenzie closed her eyes in mute sympathy to what her spiritual sister had endured. "Morningstar Plain when the Master came to him and made that offer he couldn't refuse if he wanted to live. The Liberation. Going to Italy." She gave Kitakami a light smile. "That night with you and Otsune-chan here after you all got drunk. The time he was with Suzue-chan after they cleared the Suez. Ditto with Rinnie-chan and Michiko-chan. Visits by girls like Mary-san, Gretta-san, Galína-san and Dianne-san. Then his saving Roberta-aneki and her sister from the Messina Princess. All of it..."

Kitakami shook her head. Much that she had a reputation of being a major troll at times, she wasn't as insensitive as some fans of the kanmusu often made her to be in social media blogs. Like most kanmusu who had met or had heard of Moroboshi Ataru, the torpedo cruiser understood intrinsically that there was a lot more going on inside his soul than what even close "friends" like the selfish idiot now standing to her port aft fervently believed of the man. Driven most of all by a fear of being taken advantage of and being left to fend for himself, Ataru had always bottled his emotions deep inside his heart, rarely if ever expressing things. Redet Lum had come the closest to cracking that shell and might have succeeded in her quest to claim her "darling" as her husband hadn't Fate thrown a massive monkey wrench into the works and forced Ataru into situations where he had no choice BUT to grow up and be something more than Tomobiki's resident court jester. This person whose hand she was now holding — a reborn version of one of the thousands of clones that had been created in yet another of the spats between Redet Lum and Aruka Ran shortly after the latter moved to Earth nine months ago — was a reflection of the man who had taken Kumamoto Kiko's maidenhead that evening in Taranto after she and her sister helped escort the first convoy through the recaptured Suez Canal to get oil to markets in Europe. And now, thanks to Avalonian genetics...!

"We have to get you and your sisters away from this town," the torpedo cruiser said as she gave Konatsu a suggestive look, knowing that the physical replica of one of the characters from a hentai dating game takeoff of one of Ataru's favourite visual novels would interpret what she was implying. "After all, we can sense the influence of the oni who loved to play around with people's souls here. No sense in giving them fresh targets to go after now that your brother is as strong as he is." She then leaned over to gently peck Konatsu on the lips, which made the blonde bioroid madly blush. "Konatsu-vayae..."

Hearing that, Ōi sniffed. "Oh, that's so beautiful..."

Shinobu blinked. "Um, what about you, Ōi-san?"

She then gargled as an incensed look was fired her way. "What does THAT mean, Miyake-san?!" Ōi snarled out as a battle aura flared around her, causing Shinobu to cringe as she sensed all the cruiser's weapons lock on her head.

"Oi, Otsune-chan, relax!" Konatsu said as she waved the cruiser down. "I always knew Miyake had a dirty mind deep down!" As Shinobu squawked on hearing that observation, the once-clone replica of Ataru added, "She's probably one of the ones who thinks you're actually Kiko-vayae's _**lover**_!" Here, she gave Shinobu a very disapproving look, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

An explosion nearly collapsed the nearby houses! " _ **WHAT?!**_ "

* * *

 _ **Near the Rāmen Nekohanten, a half-hour later...**_

"This Musashi has arrived!"

"Ah! Mutsuko-san!" Kitakami called out as the second of the Yamato-class stepped into a beautiful townhouse about two blocks from Tomobiki High School. "I hope that idiot Kanami-chan warned us about won't be bothersome anymore."

Musashi snorted, clearly displeased at what she had just done in Nerima, while Mackenzie waved the battleship over to a lounge chair in the living room of this multi-floor structure that had served as one of the main observation points for the Niphentaxians during the year their "goddess" resided in Tomobiki. "He proved to be a true coward in the end, Kiko-san. Even if Happōsai is nothing more than a worthless lech deep in his heart, he at least has courage and is ready to defend himself. Kanami-kun's so-called 'father-in-law' was nothing more than a lazy fool. It was like beating up a sick dog." She then blinked on seeing the now-blushing blonde tomboyish girl now seated beside the third of the Kuma-class cruisers. "Who is this?" she demanded as she focused her attention on Kitakami's new "special boatswain mate". "She appears to be a normal girl, but her spiritual aura is almost the same as Ataru-kun's! Save for that whatever-that-is now floating over her head."

Konatsu sighed. "You know of the clone gun incident, Mutsuko-san?"

The ash-haired battleship blinked before she sighed. "Yes. Yet another example of how idiotic people in this town can be at times." Here, she ignored the indignant huff from Shinobu, who had been begrudgingly invited into the house to meet her former boyfriend's new sisters despite all of Ōi's screaming protests given how much of a "stupid, selfish idiot" she was. "Not to mention yet another example of the reason those aliens did not deserve to be on Earth in the first place. From what Negako-san told this Musashi about that, all of you were made to disappear when the clone guns were destroyed at the direct order of Ataru-kun's mother in one of the FEW good things that yūjo has ever done. How did you survive?"

"Courtesy of a special group of religious police that the Niphentaxians had known as 'Guardians'," Konatsu explained. "They wanted to know what actually made Aniki tick like he did, then took control of me and eleven others, having our souls shifted into these bodies to save us after the clone guns were dismantled. We were kept in stasis until Ayumu-chan came along and sent those idiots back to their sewer-pit of a home planet just before that bomb was taken out of town."

"But when they emerged, the onslaught of memories from Ataru thanks to his time-trip — to whom they were still linked to psionically — nearly overwhelmed them," Mackenzie finished. "We had to keep them here to help them master their abilities. Konatsu came out looking for me and felt the urge to bond when she met up with Kiko here." As Musashi's eyes widened in delight on hearing of the torpedo cruiser's fortune, the adopted native of Whitehorse sighed. "As for the others..."

"Do not be concerned about what will happen to us, Mackenzie," a strange voice called over from the direction of the stairs leading to the upper floor. "The Fates will bring us together with those we are destined to be with. If others beyond Kiko and Otsune who have also enjoyed intimate company with Nii-ya wish us to be their lovers and life-mates, that is for the Fates to decide." As people turned to look, footsteps echoed the arrival of a tall, quite beautiful and graceful raven-haired woman with dark blue eyes, an aloof look on her face and her hair extending to her waist. She was dressed in a dark halter-top sundress that contrasted perfectly with her pale skin, showed off perfect legs and well-formed shoulders, not to mention barely masking an impressive superstructure. "Such as what might just happen between Mutsuko and I." Here, she seemed to focus on the battleship in their midst, a light smile crossing her face. "To know that Yoiko's sisters are all so beautiful..."

Musashi's cheeks turned as brown as chocolate as that look raked over her. "I, Musashi, would be honoured, Ojō-sama...!"

A tender smile came back to her. "Tsuchidō Otome," the raven-haired once-clone replica of Ataru quietly announced. "If you wish to understand the character reference, ask Nii-ya about that hentai version of _Sister Princess_ that came out in 2003." She hummed. "I would have liked to have looked a lot like Chikage, but the idiot that turned me into this thought it would be 'just punishment' for Nii-ya's 'defiance' of his precious 'goddess'." She then twirled her fingers. "It was so wonderful to express my own feelings for the idiot when I mind-raped him and turned him into a mental vegetable before Ayumu-chan sent him and his friends back to Phentax Two. If they were supposed to keep the peace on that planet..."

As Shinobu croaked in disbelief — having come to know many Avalonians enough over the last two weeks, she understood what this version of Ataru had done to that fellow — Konatsu snorted. "They were like other idiots serving a dictatorship, Otome. All in it for themselves. None of them ever really cared for Lum or any of her friends. They were just the latest line of victims to allow them to brainwash the unwashed masses back on that planet to toe the 'party line' like they did."

"True..."

The ringing of a materializer beam then echoed from outside, making people look. The shipgirls instantly tensed as their radar picked up the arrival of a certain aircraft carrier, who was now accompanied by a certain battleship, her current lover and his adopted older sister. Mackenzie walked over to open the door, bowing immediately as Moroboshi Negako stepped inside, followed by her brother, would-be sister-in-law and the fifth of the Yamato-class. "Nē-ya," Otome greeted before her eyes went wide on seeing the man that, until nine months before, had been her. "Nii-ya," she gently breathed out.

Stopping on hearing that greeting, Ataru paused as he gazed intently at the two bioroids that had been created to house the souls of two of the many clone replicas that had been created thanks yet ANOTHER stupid spat between his would-be "wife" and her childhood "friend" shortly after Aruka Ran had moved to Earth in hopes of seeking vengeance against Redet Lum for many past slights, both real and imagined alike. After a moment as he took time to mentally count to a hundred in Noukiite to prevent his own hidden side from blasting forth and unleashing a rampage on people who really didn't deserve it, he shook his head. " _Colourful Kiss_?!" he then wondered as he crossed his arms. "Please tell me this idiot's dead at least!"

"Effectively so, Nii-ya," Otome coldly declared.

Hearing that, he nodded. "Good. Spares me the trouble of getting Tariko to track him down so I could kill him myself." Ignoring Shinobu's horrified gasp on hearing him speak so easily about such a topic, Ataru sighed. "The others?"

"Upstairs meditating, Aniki," Konatsu stated.

"Okay. You mind, Mack?"

"Go ahead," Mackenzie said. "Sorry we kept it secret from you."

Ataru gave her a wry smile. "I can feel their lack of control from here, Mack. Don't apologize." With that, he and Roma went upstairs, followed immediately by Konatsu, Otome and Kitakami, while Ōi and Musashi remained in their chairs.

"Shinobu, remain still," Negako then coldly declared, causing her brother's old girlfriend to awk before she sank back into her chair; she had moved to follow Ataru upstairs. "To borrow the common euphemism, you are already in the 'shithouse' in Ataru's eyes when it comes to your attitudes concerning him and how he chooses to live his life. Even in the time I was within his subconscious mind, he was always _**revolted**_ by everything you did that reminded him too much of his mother's attitudes." As Shinobu winced on hearing that harsh comparison to Ataru's mother Kinshō, the ninjutsu grandmaster turned to Musashi, an amused smile briefly crossing her face. "I assume the issue with Sōun is finally dealt with, Mutsuko," she noted.

"He will harm no one again, Negako-san. Least of all his long-suffering daughters," the second of the Yamato-class declared. "He has been expelled from the Nerima ward council and his daughters will relocate to be with their maternal grandfather in Itabashi. The injuries I left the idiot with will keep him in hospital for a week. That will be enough time to see his daughters evacuate themselves for their own safety. If that idiot at Fūrinkan High tries to interfere, this Musashi will stop him."

"Yes, Godai seems to believe that he is still the 'big kahuna' when it comes to all his students," Negako stated, calmly nodding. "I doubt Kodachi will be an issue given how much she still grieves at Ranma's passing. I doubt she will be an issue concerning Kanami in the future. Kasumi will make sure that when the note to withdraw her sisters from that school is turned in to the administrative staff, it will be at a time when Godai is busy concerning himself with Tatewaki's injuries thanks to Taeko."

"What of Happōsai, Negako-sama?" Yonaga asked.

Negako gave the carrier a wry smile. "I know how much he revolts you, Yoiko. Happy is trying these days to purge himself of what the priests unleashed on him in the twenty-second year of Meiji. I showed him the way in thanks to what he tried to do for me back then. The rest must be his choice to follow or fail. What happens to him afterwards is none of my concern. It should not be yours as well, Yoiko. He has two prospective students to pass on his knowledge before he dies."

"Will they be troublesome?"

"No. They are orphans, but were convinced by Happy that Sōun is their father. I am sure that when they decide to seek their 'father' out, Natsume and Kurumi will be able to revitalize Happy's art to greater respectability."

"Why are you so concerned about that?!"

People gazed on Ataru's former girlfriend. "Shinobu...!" Mackenzie hissed.

"No!" Shinobu snapped. "Hai, what happened to Ranma-kun was horrible! What happened to Kanami-chan was disgusting! But why concern yourself about what goes on there, Negako-san?! Surely no one there can threaten Ataru-kun now!"

Negako's eyebrow arched. "You are simply incapable of seeing things as I can see them, Shinobu. But your question is legitimate, so I will answer it. You are aware of the spiritual oni and other yōkai who have influenced events in town over the last year and more, are you not? Especially in the wake of Lum coming to reside here, followed by Jariten and Ran, with all their friends frequently visiting here. How much that came to disrupt lives here, your own among them."

A tired nod answered her. "Sakura-san spoke of sensing such things on occasion."

"Do you not remember what Ataru did to Mujaki yesterday morning when he tried to influence Kanzaki Ryūha's behaviour after members of Miriam Santelli's company of magical pioneers sealed off all the restaurants from Sakura and Hayao?"

Shinobu jolted before she lowered her head, her eyes brimming with tears as she considered what had also been revealed the previous morning in the wake of the deaths of several of her schoolmates thanks to the Iranians. "H-hai..."

"All the yōkai who have, for whatever reason struck their fancy, influenced the lives of people who reside in Tomobiki — and by extension, Nerima — are now all alarmed at the fact that Ataru has the power to destroy one of their kind so easily," the ninjutsu grandmaster explained. "That was blessed to him by Keiseri — that was the mortal name of the kami those such as Mackenzie call 'the Master of Entropy' — due to the need to free the Avalonians from Niphentaxian control. Keiseri took interest in Ataru when he was invited to visit Sagussa sometime before my soul was placed in his brain after he made the Promise." As Shinobu gasped on being reminded of the time when her oldest friend had disappeared from his house for nearly two months, returning back safe and sound and claiming he had gone to a "hot and dry place" to be with thousands of pretty girls, Negako's eyes narrowed. "Given how much beings such as Mujaki enjoyed tormenting Ataru, he gladly took that gift. As such would make him far stronger than those who threatened him in the past. You and Lum being at the top of that list."

Shinobu jerked as if she had been punched hard in the gut...

* * *

 _ **Close to the Tarōzakura Hill, that moment...**_

"My lady, you are being foolish...!"

A hiss escaped the beautiful woman in the traditional robes as she spun around to glare at the rotund-looking man who was following her, he also dressed like she. Of course, the people who passed them by on the sidewalk only saw them as human. Those with the right sort of metahuman powers would immediately sense FAR much more about the woman now calling herself Kayō Tamamo and the man calling himself Nōtenki Okota. "'Foolish', you say?!" the raven-haired twenty-something who could outdo Sakurambō Sakura in the beauty department snarled, her mouth full of sharpened teeth more befitting for a fox...or a kitsune. "I am not being foolish! This is necessary, Nōtenki! Without the presence of the one Ibaraki took interest in, we cannot muster the power necessary to keep that THING caged down! With that foolish child now possessing the power of He Who Was Before, there's no hope for us now! He will be made to bow again to her even if she will die as well...!"

" _ **HEY! YOU BAD-MOUTHING LUM-CHAN, WOMAN?!**_ "

The being born ages ago as a nine-tailed fox demon in the mountains of China who would later disguise herself as a courtesan serving the seventy-fourth Heavenly Sovereign of Japan shuddered as she felt her iron-hard control over her human disguise slip slightly. Spinning around to glare at the sickly-looking lad standing nearby, Tamamo snarled, " _ **BE SILENT, BOY!**_ "

Before Koi Shinjin could sense the threat, a bolt of energy exploded from the disguised kitsune's hand to disintegrate him!

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, near the shipgirl dorms, that moment...**_

Ono Haru felt her breath catch in her throat as she felt the power of a being that was far more powerful than her echo down from the general direction of that sinkhole of magic and other energies known to mortal men as "Tomobiki".

Shuddering, the disguised four-tailed kitsune then recalled what the Earth Angel had told her about what that word translated to in the language of the bioroid women who were now becoming humanity's chief hidden ally against the Abyssals.

 _ **The Place of Fools and Madmen**_...

 _ **The Seed of Entropy**_...

 _ **The Source of All Darkness**_...

 _ **The Keep of the Herald of All Endings**_...

 _ **Toghmoghbiki**_.

"Oba-chan...what IS that?!"

That was a shivering Ono Natsumi, who was staring wide-eyed in the direction of Tomobiki. "One of the Three, my niece!" Haru hissed as she felt other yōkai who lived close to the naval district all sense what was happening. "It seems those who loved to prey on Negako's last host aren't too happy because of the agreement he made with the Star Angels' top kami...and with Ataru-kun in town now to meet his new 'sisters'..." Here, the shrine miko shook her head.

"What's going on?"

Both disguised kitsune yelped, then they looked over...

"Dani-chan!" Natsumi gasped on recognizing the would-be Obscurial who helped transform Haruna's friend into Yorktown.

Before Haru could ask what was going on, Danielle McWhorter tensed as she sensed a powerful wave of magic surge past her from the north. Focusing her own mage-sight — an ability that the native of Queens should normally have not developed until she was well into early adulthood — in that direction, she then snarled on seeing what just happened to one of the stupid boys who had always got on the case of the man who saved humanity from alien invasion a year before. "She a relative of yours?!" the American pre-teen snarled as she glared at Haru, her own eyes glowing with the raging meson-fuelled magic inside her.

Haru blinked, then she sighed. "No, she is not." Her eyes then sharpened. "Listen, little one. I know you don't care for such beings, but Tamamo-sama is a very powerful yōkai, one of three such beings who has terrorized even those such as myself for AGES! You need the power of the Great Beasts to deal with someone like her! Ataru-kun, Yoiko-san and Negako-san can..."

In a flash of light and the crack of apparition, Danielle was gone.

Haru then moaned. "...handle her," she finished in a tired voice.

Grunting, she then raced to her private study...

* * *

 _ **Back in Tomobiki...**_

" _ **SHE KILLED SHINJIN!**_ "

" _ **WHO THE HELL IS THAT?!**_ "

" _ **IT'S SOME ABYSSAL IN DISGUISE! LOOK HOW WHITE SHE IS!**_ "

" _ **SOMEONE, GET THE SHIPGIRLS! THEY CAN SAVE US!**_ "

As people who just witnessed the flat-out MURDER of an innocent boy all began to panic and get clear of the former concubine of Toba Tennō, Tamamo hissed out for a moment...before she tensed on sensing several people teleport in. " _ **HALT!**_ " one voice barked out as people levelled wands and other magical foci on her. " _ **THIS IS THE KANTŌ**_ _ **MAGICAL ASSOCIATION! IN THE NAME OF THE HEAVENLY SOVEREIGN, SURRENDER YOURSELF NOW OR...!**_ "

The nine-tailed kitsune screeched out as she lashed out with her power, sending waves of dark energy lashing out to burn down the impudent human magicals who DARED to tell HER what to do. As many of them raised shields to protect themselves, others teleported clear, grabbing bystanders to make sure no more would die. As Nōtenki moaned, shaking his head at such an act, he then tensed on sensing someone come charging in from the direction of Yokosuka. "Oh, shit...!"

The disguised oni teleported clear just as someone appeared, then exploded into dark energy filled with mesonium before it lashed out to slam into Tamamo's back, sending the elderly kitsune flying down the street to smash into a just-vacated truck, totalling it and detonating the fuel tank to create a nice explosion that nearly immolated her. Said cloud of power then melted into a smirking girl of about twelve, dressed in rather trendy clothes with a New York Yankees shirt. Seeing her, Nōtenki gaped as his own mage-senses nearly overloaded on the sheer levels of power those insane maniacs in the magical side of Unit 731 had unleashed on this really nice kid from New York City decades before, then he shook his head...

...before he winced as a howling scream escaped the inferno that was just created by Danielle McWhorter, that accompanying a lithe figure leaping clear of the flames as her human disguise burned away to reveal the dark being she truthfully was. " _ **WHO DARES...?!**_ " Tamamo howled in outrage before she focused on the bright beacon of magic now in front of her, that contained in the body of a foreign girl not old enough to have experienced her first blood. " _ **DIE!**_ " she shrieked.

A blaze of power surged right at Danielle, who simply teleported clear, which made Nōtenki yelp before he teleported clear. " _ **PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE, YOU MEAN CREEP!**_ " the American snarled as she appeared over the kitsune's head.

Like a Tallboy bomb falling on Tirpitz years before, the next attack from Danielle plunged down to crush Tamamo, driving her a dozen metres into the underlying soil! Seeing that, people moving to escape energy blasts and flying fragments screamed their approval of this child doing her best to keep them safe and put this monster down. Before someone could ask what was going on, a geyser of magic exploded from the hole, nearly incinerating the American. Fortunately, Danielle's own magic saved her even if she was blasted into the sky from the force of the impact. Just as the would-be Obscurial moved to teleport back to the ground, a black-and-grey blur caught her, then orientated himself to drop down on the street some distance away from where a moaning Nōtenki stood, shaking his head as he moaned how bad this had become, with the man who once gave the spirit egg of a magical village near Fuji-san the power to nearly swamp all of Tomobiki in darkness now blessed by powers truly beyond the understanding of even those yōkai who normally resided in Tomobiki. As people turned to look, a metallic voice then called out, " **I'm tagging in, Danielle. It seems this meanie wants to have a discussion with me.** "

The smoke surrounding whoever spoke so ominously then cleared...

...earning the Cyborg a chorus of horrified screams from people who never expected THIS from their town's most infamous resident. Looking at the man with the wicked armour whose grand-uncle served as one of Yonaga's crew, Danielle hummed before she focused on the disguised oni nearby. "What about Fats Domino there, Ataru?" she asked. "He a meanie?"

As Nōtenki yelped on sensing the would-be Obscurial glaring intently at him, Ataru shook his head. " **No. He's just a 'causality of the situation' as a former member of Marguerite McNair's crew said it in that movie once.** " His good eye narrowed as he focused his own powers on the snarling kitsune who was now trying to crawl her way out of the hole Danielle had smashed her into with her magic. " **Nōtenki, I suggest you leave now. Give my regards to the people of Koropokkuru.** "

" _ **COWARD...!**_ " escaped the creature in the hole nearby.

As Nōtenki yelped on hearing his lord's ally snarl that accusation, Ataru's sensor eye glowed star-bright. " **Nōtenki, this is your last warning** ," the modern mortal avatar of Sagussa's god of death hissed. " **I am summoning** _ **Velial**_ **to give him souls to repay him for the ones I accidentally took from him months ago. Your 'friend' will be one. She defies MY master by continuing to live in lieu of embracing Eternity as she should have done years ago.** " His eyebrow arched. " **Well?** "

Hearing that, the laid-back oni sighed. "I'm out of here!"

With that, he vanished. " **Good** ," Ataru said deadpan. " **Keep the crowds safe, Danielle.** " With that, he took a couple steps closer to the hole now containing one of the Three Great Yōkai. " **Would you care to step outside,** _ **Tamamo-no-Mae**_ **?** "

As people shrieked on hearing the name of that cursed beast, a howl of outrage escaped the hole Danielle had made, that accompanied by a glowing humanoid form with nine fox-like tails leaping out to charge the impudent boy who had spoiled so much over the last year and more. People seeing this ducked their heads to avoid watching what could happen...then they winced on hearing a metallic _**CLANG!**_ echo in the air, that accompanied by a shriek of outrage and pain and the faint whistle of a body being tossed through the air in the direction of the Tarōzakura Hill. Looking again, they gaped on seeing the glowing meteorite-like bolt of energy marking Tamamo's passage to slam into the east cliff of the hill that formed the southern extent of the Mendō estate, making the ancient cherry tree shudder at such an impact. Eyes then turned back to see the Cyborg standing there, clearly not the least bit bothered by the fact that he had been powerful enough to swat away one of the Three as if she had been an annoying mosquito. " **Hope Mendō's people are prepared** ," the machine-man dryly said with a chuckle before he crouched his legs, then made a leap that defied all imagination in the direction his current foe had been flung.

"Hey! Wait for me!"

Danielle teleported off after him...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Bundestag** — Federal Diet, the legislative body of the German national government; **Magische Bundesrat** — Magical Federal Council, the modern German version of the Wizengamot; **Bundespräsident** — Federal President, the modern German head-of-state; **Grundgesetz** — Basic Law, the "temporary" constitution of the modern German republic; **Inspekteur der Flottenmädchen** — Inspector of Fleet Maidens; **Spezieller Bootsmann —** Special boatswain; **Vayae** — Literally "my beloved", this is the Sagussan honorific suffix one applies to one's bond-mate.

A nod of thanks to _**Shaithan**_ , who created the idea of randomly-spawning Abyssals in his snippets add-ons to Harry Leferts stories; please refer to his snippet #s 12 and 17 at SpaceBattles to see how this involved **DMS** _ **Tirpitz**_ ( **Maria von Tirpitz** ). Given the association between Abyssals and shipgirls as noted on in the _KanColle_ movie, I'll take them in a different direction than what Shaithan first postulated in his stories.

Another nod of thanks to _**Harry Leferts**_ himself for referring me to the Yōkai website to introduce me to the mass plethora of creatures which haunts those islands. Just Google the word (without macron) and it's the second entry in the search engine. Yet another nod of thanks to _**Mike Koos**_ AKA _**Haibara-san**_ , writer of _The Great Shipgirl Swap_ , for sending me links concerning American Navy slang, including ship nicknames. Since I'm a former Royal Canadian Navy purple tradesman (two years aboard **HMCS** _ **Saguenay**_ **DDH-206** from 1987-89 as an administration clerk), I know the local slang, but not stuff from down south.

 _ **Colourful Kiss**_ is a hentai visual novel created by the Giga company as a take-off on one of my favourite visual novel/anime series, _Sister Princess_. Like that series, _Colourful Kiss_ depicts a story where the player character encounters twelve girls claiming to be his sister, but would later proven to be false. All the girls in that story are much more mature than many of the moeblobs of _SisPri_. The concept of the Niphentaxians who were busy watching over their "holy city" capturing some of the clones of Moroboshi Ataru that were created by Redet Lum and Aruka Ran during the events of the _Yatsura_ manga story "All of Me" (manga chapter #107) was first explored in _Long Way Home_.

 **Nōtenki** and the village of **Koropokkuru** first appeared in the _Yatsura_ manga episode "Characteristic" (manga chapter #12).

 **Tamamo-no-Mae** is a legendary nine-tailed kitsune who was first written of in the _Otogizōshi_ ("Companion Tales"), a collection of short stories which were written during the **Muromachi Period** (1392-1573). She was said to have lived during the time of **Toba Tennō** (born **Munehito** , lived 1103-56, ruled 1107-23) and his eighth son **Konoe Tennō** (born **Narihito** , lived 1139-55, ruled 1142 to death), where she served as a courtesan. According to the legends, she was originally from China who had seduced the legendary King **Zhòu of Shāng** (born **Dì Xīn** , reported lived 1105-1046 BCE, ruled 1075-46 BCE) before she decamped to China. She would eventually be killed by warriors sent by Konoe Tennō to avenge his father's poor health in later years. After her death, her spirit was infused in a rock that released poisonous gas that killed passers-by until a Buddhist monk named **Gennō Shinshō** exorcised the kitsune's spirit to release her to the next life.

Shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **FRANCE  
**_ **GC Jean Bart (1940)** — Jeanne Dianne Baert

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Missouri** — Marguerite Suzanne "Gretta" McNair


	18. Forever Exorcise The Demons of Tomobiki

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **The port of Múrmansk on the shores of the Barents Sea, Wednesday 24 May, noon (Tōkyō time: Supper)...**_

" _ **TO OUR HONOURED COMRADES FROM AMERICA, SALUTE!**_ "

The small group of American shipgirls all snapped to attention, saluting Old Glory as it was marched onto the scene under escort by very sharp-looking Russian naval infantry soldiers, who also carried the beautiful Andréevskij Flag emblazoned with the crest of the Órden Suvórova in the canton marking the incredible actions made by the Federation's sailors in the years leading up to Blood Week, when the whole Northern Fleet was lost to the Abyssals. At the head of her formation, Missouri puffed with understandable pride on seeing that the Northern Fleet's ceremonial colours were topped with the streamer marking the Navy version of the Presidential Unit Citation, awarded to the survivors for their help in rescuing the crew of several American warships during Blood Week; such had been personally given to the administrative director of Russia's shipgirls by President Josiah Bartlet within a month of the first old Soviet warships being called back to duty as shipgirls.

As _Anchors Aweigh_ echoed from the band nearby, a group of grinning children came up to present traditional gifts for strangers to Missouri's action group, which included light cruiser San Diego and destroyers O'Bannon, Fletcher, Radford and Jenkins. Said group had helped successfully punched through a large convoy of ships from Norfolk to Múrmansk bearing vital medical supplies for the many communities in Russia's northwest. Thanks to Abyssal penetrations of the nearby White Sea, both truck and railway traffic from the direction of Sankt-Peterbúrg and points south were disrupted by aircraft carriers sending bombers to blow up stretches of track and roadway close to the shoreline. Fortunately, both the Finns and the Norwegians were willing to allow the Russians to use their roads to get supplies to the port city, even if such consumed a lot of fuel due to greater distances. That people who once mistrusted each other greatly now worked hard to support each other...!

"Spasíbo," the namesake of the Show-Me State said as she ruffled the hair of one sad looking boy after she got her gift.

He gazed up at the tall and muscular raven-haired woman with the dark blue eyes behind glasses, then his wan smile turned genuine for a moment before he bowed, then headed off. Watching him go, Missouri tried not to wince. She had seen that shell-shocked look many times before on both sides of the Atlantic. That poor kid — not to mention his friends — were military brats who lost relatives in Blood Week. While the battleship marvelled at how resilient children were...

«It is a sad thing, is it not?»

Missouri looked right and down for a second before she nodded, then she braced to attention to salute the passing of the colours, as did her party and the host shipgirls from the combined CIS fleet that were based here. «Yeah,» she flashed back by signal lamp to Gángut, who was leader of the local reception party for the Americans during this visit. «Kids have guts, but they don't have the experience to understand what's going on. All they see is that Dad and Mom are dead.»

«Da!» the first of her class of dreadnoughts stated with a grim nod. Much that she loved to rub the "decadent" Americans whenever they came to port, the shipgirl known to close friends as Galína Vladímirovna Jurkévich was a true daughter of Russia deep down. The tragedy that had befallen the children of the Motherland thanks to the Abyssals tore at her heart constantly; that made her vicious when she dealt with the enemy while out on patrol. She had already gone through her "Pérvyj" and "Vtorój" upgrades to make her as advanced as she ever got as a battleship. Right now, the geniuses at the Ministry of Magical Affairs in Sankt-Peterbúrg working under the Liberator of All Europe were analyzing what just happened to Arizona to see if it could be replicated for shipgirls of the CIS. «Every time I'm ashore, I go visit the orphanages to make sure the little ones have SOMEONE to care fro them. Our Avalonian comrades are pitching in to help now that Tarúsha and his sister have cleared out those swine from Phentax Two...but it may never be enough for the little ones, Garíta.»

On thinking of Moroboshi Ataru, Gángut tried not to blush on remembering the blissful couple of days she spent in the warm and powerful arms of the last host of the Earth Angel after she helped escort a large grain shipment from Novorossíjsk to Taranto, encountering the forces of several installation princesses along the way which required her to be laid up at the Italian port for a week to recover. Inwardly cursing herself for not moving to claim him when chance presented itself before Roma won his heart, the lead ship of the her class sighed, though she remained properly stoic as the mayor of Múrmansk came up to deliver his own short speech of thanks. Given that shipgirls had faeries who could help in translation and given that the shipgirls from Norfolk had picked up on a lot of Russian phrases over the last two years since they got called back to duty at Great Lakes, Missouri and her team pretty much got the gist of what was being said within the first few minutes.

«Hope this won't last forever,» O'Bannon mused. «I'm hungry.»

«We've got a new potato version of borsch you can try, Matíl'da Preslíovna,» Gremjáschij teased from beside the sixth of the Fletcher-class destroyers who was one of the first American warships to be recalled back as a shipgirl.

That made the scrappy-looking tomboyish destroyer who wore four-leaf clovers in her dark red hair smirk in delight. «Can't wait to give it a try, Dína,» she flashed back, winking to the fourth of the Gnévnyj-class destroyers.

Mercifully enough, the mayor's speech was short, which caused silent sighs of relief from the shipgirls of two nations. Once the commander of the shipgirl forces for the Northern Fleet dismissed the troops, Kontr-Admirál Jarosláva Vladímirovna Chernávina came over to join her subordinates and guests, a relieved smile on her severe yet pretty face. The thirty-something native of Rjazán' southeast of Moskvá had been a senior administrator at Navy headquarters back when it was still in the capital of the Federation when the lead-up to Blood Week saw the old British toast "here's to bloody wars and sickly seasons" secure her a pair of admiral's stars long before her time, then forced her into command of a diverse group of shipgirls after Svetlána Múrometsa and her friends got involved in summoning; in that, the Russians and their brother ex-Soviet republics shamelessly borrowed the Canadian method to see a wide diversity of warships returned, built and planned alike.

"You ever finally going to sea, Vavára Mikhájlovna?!" Gángut teased the current chief secretary shipgirl for the Northern Fleet.

"My sea legs haven't vanished at all, Galína Vladímirovna!" battlecruiser Borodíno fired back as she gave the slightly-scarred dreadnought a droll look before she reached over to grasp Missouri's hand. "Heard your last two sisters finally came to join us just now at Great Lakes, Margaríta Márkovna! That's good news! How soon will they be able get to sea and start chasing some of the enemy battleships down?! We can't let our Canadian comrades do all the work alone!"

The last American battleship to be finished in World War Two rolled her eyes. "They need to learn how to be sail first, Vavára. Not just Kentucky and Illinois, but Ohio as well." At the Russians' delighted looks, the third of the Iowa-class sighed. "That just leaves Maine and New Hampshire from the Montanas, then we'll have every super-battleship that was ever built or designed. We got the news about the Lions and the H-class girls when we rounded the North Cape."

"Da, it is good," Gángut stated. "It is perhaps good that only four of the Sojúz-class were laid down. I wonder how the other 'republics' would turn out if they came back one day. Sofjúsha will have her hands full with them, I think."

Smirks crossed people's face on hearing the old dreadnought call the lead ship of the Project 23 super-battleships "little Sofíja"; Sojúz and her sisters Rossíja, Ukrajína and Belaruś were taller than Yamato or any of her sisters save Yonaga! Before people could comment further, running feet made Chernávina's head snap over to see a wide-eyed Army stárshij práporschik race towards them, a sheet of printout in hand. A quick glance to the younger woman's left shoulder revealed the service patch of the Magícheskaja Milítsija Federácii, the large division of combat sorcerers who served as Russia's paranormal defence force in war and peace. "Comrade Admiral!" she called out, stopping to salute the older normal woman.

"Report, Comrade Ensign!" Chernávina called back, using the rough translation of "práporschik" in front of the Americans.

"Flash traffic from Comrade Admiral Gotō in Yokosuka!" the young witch stated, trying to keep calm, thankful that the crowds of normal people who had gathered for this had backed away enough. "There's an incident in Tomobiki as we're speaking now. Atarú Mútovich Morobósi was forced to reveal his bond to that ancient alien death god! Supposedly, some ancient Japanese fox spirit who should have DIED centuries ago has come after him because of what he did to his 'wife'!"

" _ **WHAT?!**_ " both Missouri and Gángut shrieked...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, near Tomobiki High School, that moment...**_

"Oh, God, have mercy...!"

This was a nightmare.

There was no getting around that one point.

This was the ultimate nightmare!

 _Ataru-kun, what POSSESSED you...?!_

Shaking her head as she tried to fight down the urge to run into a nearby bathroom and throw up, Miyake Shinobu closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks as the sheer SCALE of what her former boyfriend had allowed to have happen to himself almost a year ago on another planet sank into her. Seeing that handsome boy literally be _**burned alive**_ to transform into some half-machine THING that produced an aura of dark power even an effectively "normal" person such as she could sense was something Shinobu would never in all her years suspect from even someone like Ataru, who had been glad to push social limits with reckless abandon when he got the chance, yet still held onto his humanity with a grip of iron. Yet NOW...!

"You can't wish him to go back to the way he was, Shinobu-chan," a quiet voice then said. "Onii-san's had enough of people telling him what to do. After all he's been through because of Lum, he won't tolerate it. Even from you."

Shinobu blinked, then she turned to look at the bookish-looking girl standing behind her, a sad look on her face. Taking in the shaggy, short-cut black hair and the blue eyes behind round reading glasses, Ataru's former girlfriend took a deep breath before she winced on hearing a massive explosion echo through the air from the direction of the Tarōzakura Hill not two kilometres away. "Karasawa Mitsuki, right?" she then asked, remembering how much Ataru had once ranted about _Colourful Kiss_ , a hentai version of one of his favourite dating simulation games which had NEVER strayed close to anything lewd even if there had been the option while playing _Sister Princess_ where one of the "sisters" didn't have to be blood-related.

"Hopefully 'Moroboshi Mitsuki' soon," the physical look-alike of the fourth of the characters of that particular game said as she walked up to stand beside her brother's old girlfriend, smirking slightly on seeing a geyser of energy explode from the ground close to the Tarōzakura itself. Trying not to shiver as she felt the cold rationality sink down upon the heart of her brother/template while he permitted the dark side of his soul to take over while dealing with a millennia-old kitsune who should have died centuries ago, she gently grasped Shinobu's hand, which the other girl didn't resist. "Hiromi-onēsan is working on that now. Since some of the girls are starting to become attracted to Onii-san's old dates from Taranto..."

Shinobu blinked. She knew that Mitsuki would be able to read her thoughts now that they were holding hands, though she sensed that this version of Ataru would never take liberties with her. "How many are we talking about here?"

"We're dealing with potentially nine." As Shinobu gaped, Mitsuki shrugged. "Mary Hood, Dianne Baert, Marguerite McNair, Galína Jurkévich, Catarina von Savoyen, Michiko Norton, Matsuhara Suzue, Kumamoto Kiko and Kumamoto Otsune."

The other woman took that in, then she sighed. "I recognize Hood's name. The Kumamoto sisters are Kitakami and Ōi. I don't recognize the other ones." She shrugged as Mitsuki gave her a look. "I didn't write that list, after all."

Mitsuki chuckled. "Dianne is the second Jean Bart. Marguerite is Missouri. Catarina is Prinz Eugen. Michiko is San Francisco. Suzue is Zuikaku. And Galína is Gángut. A nice collection, I'd say." She then sighed before she winced.

That made the other woman tense. "What?!"

"Oh, it looks like the oni bitch that was playing with Lum's soul just arrived."

That made Shinobu wince...

* * *

 _ **The Tarōzakura Hill...**_

" _ **RELEASE ME...!**_ "

" **Oh, shut up, please.** "

With a casual fling of his fully-cybernetic arm, the transformed Ataru threw the rather demonic version of Redet Lum through the air to smash back-first into the trunk of the now-burning Tarōzakura. As members of the Mendō Clan's considerable paramilitary forces moved to get wounded members of their group away from the scene, the living icon of Sagussa's god of death casually twisted his body to avoid the bolt of energy sent his way by one of the Three Great Yōkai of Japanese myth. " **Nice try, death cheater** ," Ataru said as his left eye glowed star-bright, then he sent a blast right into the transformed kitsune's shoulder, nearly shearing off her right arm. As she screamed in agony on feeling the cold power of this impudent mortal's spiritual patron, Ataru shifted slightly as his right eye focused on Ibaraki-dōji while the shuddering female oni pulled herself back to her feet. " **Stay down** ," he then coldly ordered. " **This is no business of yours. Leave.** "

The dark spirit known in legends as the chief servant of the king of all oni howled as crackling lightning-like energy formed around both her hands. " _ **DARLING NO BAKA!**_ " she shrieked as she sent a concentrated blast at him.

The Cyborg stood his ground as the energy washed over him, making his hair ruffle and his organic skin redden from the heat of the blast, though his now-dark cybernetics weren't affected. As other ghostly images surged up from the flat ground close to the Tarōzakura to materialize around him, he sighed. This was something way more than just one nine-tail kitsune misbehaving. " **Yoiko, could you get rid of these things?** " he calmly asked. " **I'm busy with the death cheater here.** "

"With pleasure, Ataru-san."

The legion of oni who came to aid their lady tensed on sensing something come towards them, then they turned...

...before one's head came flying off the neck thanks to an enchanted katana. As its body disintegrated, the fifth of the Yamato-class spun around to face the others, allowing her own battle aura to form around her. Smirking on seeing them instantly pale as the power of the Primal One of the North flooded her hull from keel to foretops, Yonaga assumed a classic challenge position, her admiral's blade glistening with the shed blood of her first kill this day. "Your move."

"You alone in this, Onē-sama?"

Using her right hand to keep her blade steady on target, Yonaga's left hand became a blur...

...then the oni all spun around to see the carrier's second-oldest battleship sister standing nearby, a savage smile on her face as she took her own pose with the katana, one the yōkai sensed was also blessed by the might of Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq. "With regards," Musashi teased as her teeth glittered in the sunlight. "This Musashi has wanted to kill evil slime who gladly plague the lives of innocents for days! How nice of you to volunteer yourselves as targets! This Musashi is most pleased!"

"This is not your place, sea angel!" one oni, who looked like some horned version of Lum's childhood "friend" Aruka Ran, snarled. "You don't realize what is truly at stake here! Have you any idea of what's really here?!"

" **The remnants of my master's former laboratory, of course.** "

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **YOU WON'T HAVE IT!**_ " Tamamo shrieked.

She instantly melted into human-shaped energy, then charged right at Ataru...

...only to nearly get her head punched off by the third of the Littorio-class battleships. "Just stay still and DIE!" Roma snarled as she drew out a beautiful crucifix, then slapped it palm-first into the kitsune's face.

Tamamo shrieked in agony as the magic in the cross burned her, thanks to the incredible blessings bestowed to it by both religious, magical and non-magical paranormal researchers working for the Famiglia di Vongola; such had been given to Roma and her sisters in repayment for they saving il Paese della Mafia off the coast of Sicily three years ago. As her whole body convulsed wildly from the bombardment of spiritual energy that came from the combined faith of _**thousands**_ of metahuman-gifted mafiosi who had served the Vongola and their allied families over the last two centuries, the kitsune staggered back from the advancing gaijin battleship, who was forcing her away from her target. "You should have died centuries ago!" the third of the Littorio-class snarled. "Your soul was released from this life by a good monk who reported you had repented your sins! Did you LIE to the good priest, beast?! By what right do you presume that you can KILL people like that?!"

" _ **GET AWAY FROM ME!**_ " Tamamo howled as she lashed out with what energy she had.

A loud _CLANG!_ echoed over the scene as Roma cried out in pain, staggering back as she took a massive hit in her own citadel. As she collapsed to her knees, the kitsune snarled as she moved to leap over the battleship to get at Ataru, who was busy dealing with the oni who had subconsciously played around with his "wife" for a year. Before she got close, the whistling noises of bombs coming at her head made Tamamo spin around and look up...just as two squadrons of Yokosuka D4Y2 Suisei dive bombers with the markings of the Fifth Carrier Division sent a storm of faerie-sized 500 kilogram bombs falling right at her her head. The kitsune shrieked as said bombs exploded very close to her, sending shockwaves of burning meson-augmented trinitrotoluene ripping into her body. " _ **WHO DARES...?!**_ " Tamamo howled as she tried to send bolts of energy skyward to swat away the annoying gnats who were trying to stop her from preventing a major tragedy from happening.

" _ **NEKUL'TÚRNYJ MONSTR!**_ "

Roma shook her head as she staggered back to her feet. "Galína!"

A silver-haired dreadnought leapt over the younger battleship to drop down between her and the still-burning Tamamo, a glittering sháshka in hand. Seeing that, the wounded kitsune instantly backpedalled; that blade had a core of the Atom of True Life in it and it was as hypercharged with energy as that crucifix the other gaijin shipgirl possessed. Seeing that, the first of her class of dreadnought smirked. "Zdrávstvujte," she greeted in her native tongue before switching to her accented Japanese. "You have the sheer temerity to attack our little Tarúsha because he grew tired of your oni friends playing around with his life?! You're in front of a _**firing squad**_ right now, monster! There will be no clemency for you this time!"

" _ **DIE!**_ "

Before Tamamo could launch another burst of energy at the impudent sea angel, a howling scream of agony made people gaze upon Ibaraki-dōji, who just experienced a burning bolt of energy in her very gut thanks to Ataru's glowing left eye. " **Doesn't feel so good being at the** _ **receiving**_ **end of it, does it?** " the machine-man stated calmly as he walked over to snare her by the neck and boost her off the ground. " **Allow me to give you all what you made Lum give me over a year...** "

Her scream turned into a near-mortal shriek of overwhelming pain as THOUSANDS of volts of electricity augmented by the very power of the Veil of Eternity Itself poured into her like Niagara Falls, nearly turning her into a burnt husk. Screams of outrage escaped the other oni as they immediately moved to dog-pile the living herald of the Avalonians' god of death. Fortunately for Ataru, Yonaga, Musashi and Roma — now joined by Kitakami and Ōi — were there to intercept them and keep them away while he dealt with his chief spiritual tormentor for over a year. Just as he finished delivering back the energy which had been expended on him by his "wife" to make him submit to her, an area of flat ground near the Tarōzakura exploded, allowing a black bird-like humanoid to emerge from the geyser of dark lava now erupting from the core of the hill.

" _ **RELEASE HER, COUSIN!**_ " the thunderous roar of the ōtengu that, in his mortal life, had been the seventy-fifth Heavenly Sovereign of Japan echoed over the scene. As said being came down close to where Ataru was standing, he pointed a clawed finger. " _ **SHE IS UNDER MY PROTECTION! YOUR DUTIES TO THE NATION SUPERCEDE THAT OF AN ALIEN, BOY...!**_ "

"Akihito, be silent."

Hearing that cold voice from behind him, Sutoku Tennō spun around...

...then screamed out as Moroboshi Negako's soulsword punched into his gut. As the ōtengu's body began to smoke from the burning power of the Earth Angel, a faint smile crossed the face of Ataru's sister. "You were dethroned for you failure to preserve the peace of the land, then banished from the Court. Your failure to repent your actions saw you damned by history. How did you escape Hirosuke's attempts at permanently dealing with you? Was he merciful, perhaps...?"

" _ **BOW TO YOUR SOVEREIGN, CREATURE!**_ "

Sutoku Tennō sent a blast of black energy at Negako, who remained still as it simply dispersed before it even got close to her. People with enhanced eyesight such as the shipgirls moving to help Roma's lover deal with these creatures were quick to see the aura of energy cloaking the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū, that fuelled by the very power of the Earth itself. Screaming out in frustration on noting that this being who served his descendant wasn't respecting him, the ōtengu forced himself away from the reach of Negako's blade before he leapt into the air, hoping to swat her down with energy attacks from above, where she could not reach with the tip of that horrible weapon forged of her immortal soul...

 _KK-KRACK!_

Sutoku Tennō screamed as something smashed hard into the back of his neck, sending him tumbling right into the burning branches of the Tarōzakura. On impact, he then howled in agony as a storm of meson-fuelled energy seemed to burn him alive just as a man in funeral black landed on the ground close to Negako, brandishing the handy woodsman's axe he had used both as a normal man and as a near-immortal hunting the undead. "Would you require some assistance, Negako?" he asked.

Negako smiled. "It is appreciated, Abraham."

Abraham Lincoln nodded before he indicated a small crowd approaching from the north along the paved road that connected the Tarōzakura Hill with the rest of the estate. "You mind dealing with that bunch there?" the nigh-immortal former president then asked. "Seems a passel of these yōkai are trying to force them to watch as your brother deals with his tormentors, making it seem as he is about to permanently kill his former 'wife'. Might need soulswords to deal with them."

She looked over, then she sighed. Leading that group was Mendō Shūtarō himself, he accompanied by a group of boys from Tomobiki High School, including Kanzaki Ryūha. Her own metasenses were quick to detect the spirits of Aisuru Satoshi and the core members of Lum's Stormtroopers who had been killed two nights before trailing their still-living schoolmates, the obvious signs that they were being transformed into onryō quite apparent. Also present — and clearly totally ignorant of what was influencing them — were Sakurambō Sakura and her uncle Hayao. "Ataru intends to sacrifice all who are here today to Velial in repayment over that incident when he accidentally summoned him. Do not kill anyone you face."

"Fair enough," Lincoln stated.

" _ **NEVER!**_ "

The former president leapt up to avoid Sutoku Tennō's claws as Negako moved to intercept the approaching crowd...

* * *

 _ **The Toranoseishin Tower downtown, that moment...**_

"The Earth Angel's sister is willing to speak to me?"

As people gaped in shock on seeing the scantily-clad Southern War Princess, a being who had been the bane of Japanese and allied shipgirls for five years, now walking into the lobby of the local headquarters of the Inshin Group, the tomboyish, dark-skinned super-battleship in the gunmetal-grey skinsuit of a magical warship smirked as she gave her companion a knowing look. "The elders sensed that something that would bring peace to your heart will soon be discovered in this gathering place, Nampō," Uluṟu stated as she waved the Abyssal fleet leader to the nearby elevator landing. As one of the guards protecting this place bowed politely to the seventh of the Victoria-class super-battleships — those ten ships were effective replicas of Canada's Argo-class built in dockyards at Callala Bay in New South Wales and Kāwhia on New Zealand's North Island, each armed with the same number of 16 inch Mark 7 naval rifles that Argo and Chennalton had received thanks in part to Franklin Delano Roosevelt — the two women came to a stop before one lift. "Much that the elders understand what often drives people like yourself to madness all the time, you do have compassion. Very much like Lady Wanko possesses."

Hearing that, Nampō nodded her thanks as she ignored some of the gaping people around her. Like the installation princess that dominated the approaches to Darwin over the last few years, the roving battleship princess that had dominated the area around the Solomon Islands wasn't as crazy when it comes to dealing with humans as many of their kind were, especially when it came to dealing with sparkles. Like many places in Canada even today, Australia and New Zealand were quite foreboding for humans, magical and normal alike; it required a very hardy type of person to live in either country. Magically, the two nations had been watched over by aboriginal sorceresses who always acknowledged the power of the Great Beasts that held sway over those lands, the Rainbow Serpent that dominated the Land of Sahul since before the Old Ones' time and the Earth Mother Papatūānuku that had kept parts of the Land of Tasmantis above water when the last Ice Age ended.

European migrants who moved to those lands to escape the hypocrisy forced on them by "wise pureblood elders" who dominated governments of the Continent after 1692 had been quick to ally with native magicals and adopt many of their ways to survive places that didn't forgive ANY mistakes, much less any disrespect to the divine powers active in those lands. The many attempts by the International Confederation of Wizards to make local magicals conform to "proper" standards had been dead aborning from the start. Thanks to the danger those territories presented, ministries established in 1809 (in Australia) and 1841 (in New Zealand) were granted full independence from any oversight by London, thus allowing them to tame those lands without interference from the other side of the planet which could have provoked a massive Statute breech if something went wrong due to lack of knowledge when it came to understanding the local scene. This allowed the magicals of both countries to develop a sense of cultural independence which matched their Canadian cousins, especially when it came to dealing with "conservative" natives of the Continent and the United States. That made them very supportive of Yomigawa Tsukiko's efforts to free the planet from European enslavement even if they were "enemies" during the War of Liberation.

Like Canada, Australia and New Zealand were normally seen as "magical backwaters" filled with "muggle-loving fools" who didn't respect the "proper" way of doing things as most conservative magicals in Europe always believed.

The southern war princess shook her head out of her reflecting on such a stupid, trivial issue when the car came, allowing she and Uluṟu to step inside. Ignoring the battleship pressing the button for the top floor, Nampō sighed. Much that she hated dealing with idiot sparkles who tried to "tame" her, she really didn't hate humans. Yes, they were, for the most part, arrogant creatures who didn't really understand their place in the order of things. Magical humans were, for the most part, especially arrogant in that regard. But given that Nampō had been born from the spirits of brave American seaman seeking just vengeance for the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, she had not gone out of the way to make a nuisance of herself against the residents of Australia or New Zealand; in that, she was often influenced by the massed memories of wonderful times ashore those sailors spent in places like Sydney and Darwin. Not only that, there was a third Great Beast she didn't care to challenge and who resided in her area of operations: The Lord of the Deep that considered all of Oceania his domain and who had gladly destroyed Abyssals in squadron strength who DARED poison parts of his territory for no reason whatsoever.

No, Nampō didn't consider herself stupid by any reason.

The silver-haired woman then tensed on sensing something explode from the south. Glancing over her shoulder, she blinked on seeing that large ancient cherry tree on a hill overlooking Tomobiki on fire, with explosions, spell-fire, energy blasts and warplanes launched from local aircraft carriers filling the air over the flat plateau of the hill where the tree stood. "What is happening?" she asked as her sharp hearing picked up the enjoyable screeches of local demons being hurt.

The battleship known to close friends as Alkawari Kulitja — or "Renée Kulitja" to her white-skinned sisters — focused her mage-sight on the scene. Her black eyes then went wide. "Damn!" the shipgirl with the curly grey-flecked rusty-red hair whistled. "Looks like the Three decided they couldn't take the idea of Yoiko's spiritual grandnephew being touched by the Death Lord who once dominated this place before Mother Serpent's time, then tried to call him out."

Nampō winced on hearing the human name of the Angry One, then she focused her eyes and radar on the tall, muscular battleship-turned-carrier who was busy cutting down hordes of local horn-head demons with her blessed blades. "She is there, but didn't launch aircraft to bomb some of them, not like Suzue and Kanako did," the southern war princess mused before she perked on seeing who else was there. "President Lincoln?! What's he doing in country?!" she demanded.

"He was called to look in on things by his current successor in Washington," the seventh of the Victoria-class battleships mused before she focused on the bird-like being that Abraham Lincoln was fighting. "Ah, the deposed high king of this land who became a bird demon," she said with a click of her tongue. "No doubt trying to seek vengeance against those who deposed him from the Throne of Amaterasu all those years ago. An interesting match-up indeed..."

Her eyes then narrowed as her mage-sight picked out something that was buried deep in the heart of the Tarōzakura Hill.

Actually, it was TWO somethings.

One was a baby-like being that seemed to feed on the memories of the people who lived in this place, forcing said memories to feed back upon the residents and make them think of nothing else than what this creature wanted them to remember. That made Uluṟu snarl as she recalled what she had been told by her Canadian sisters concerning how attitudes in Tomobiki hadn't changed in the wake of the revelations concerning the Niphentaxians, especially among the male high school age population. If that being had found a way to tap into the energy of those memories and had come to enjoy the "spirit of wonder and innocence" that had held sway over the town in the last year or so, doing everything she could to maintain the flow of energy into her even in the wake of the forced expulsion of the one person who made it happen not more than several days ago...!

Uluṟu's eyes then focused on the second being there.

"Mother Serpent, have mercy...!"

* * *

 _ **The Tarōzakura Hill...**_

" _ **LEARN YOUR PLACE, BOY!**_ "

Ataru blinked, then he deftly tilted himself to one side to avoid the kanabō that had been swung down at his head, his left eye glowing. A second later, a bolt of energy ripped into the snarling brown-skinned being that had just teleported in to rescue Ibaraki-dōji from this mortal version of the Master of Entropy, making him scream out in pain as that deathly force started to tear at his very being. " _ **STOP THAT, DARLING!**_ " Ibaraki-dōji then shrieked as she lashed out with her own powers.

As his eye-laser cut a deep gash in her right cheek, a voice screeched, " _ **ATARU! YOU WILL BOW TO LUM-SAN!**_ "

Hearing that unwelcome voice, Ataru sighed. " **Delightful. Forgot about** _ **them**_ **...** "

His left eye then glowed as he sent a bolt of energy into the ground to the east of the Tarōzakura. As everyone — the shipgirls had been joined by Missouri, who had come with Gángut — took note of this while they were either fighting the oni or recuperating from damage unleashed by said oni, Ataru's energy created a rune that was shaped like a fat skeleton key-like tree rising from the ground with the Cross of Lorraine at its roots. While the machine-man was quite quick to dodge the club blows of Ibaraki-dōji's "father" Shuten-dōji, the supreme ruler of all spiritual devils that had haunted Japan for centuries, he was inwardly smirking as he fired power into that rune every time he got a clear shot. For a total of _**thirteen**_ times.

" **Good night, Gracie** ," he quipped as he made the "V" sign with his left hand.

Seeing that and the rune that had been burned into the ground close to his family's most precious tree, Mendō Shūtarō turned stark-white as it dawned on him how far his hated rival was prepared to go. " _ **MOROBOSHI! ARE YOU MAD...?!**_ "

A titanic explosion then ripped apart the Tarōzakura as yet ANOTHER geyser of flame and energy erupted from the ground. At the same time, a portal to a realm where no mortal would ever wish to go then opened, revealing a smiling man with slicked-back raven hair, burning chestnut brown eyes and tapered ears, dressed quite fashionably and riding a stylish Harley-Davidson cruiser onto the scene, it towing a side-car where a small pack of yapping hellhounds were riding, all looking excited. All the oni and the other yōkai who had come to these grounds then froze as the newcomer came to a stop, a hungry grin on his face as he gazed upon the many corrupted souls that were now within easy reach of him; trading them in with his bosses in the Lower Regions would definitely bring him bonuses that would recoup the losses he suffered here nearly a year before.

"Oh, my!" Velial gasped, his eyes wide at such a bounty before him. "When you promised me you'd give me souls, Ataru...!"

" **They're all yours, Velial** ," Ataru said...

...before he lunged at Ibaraki-dōji, energy misting around his right hand. " _ **KONTŌ!**_ " he bellowed as the soulsword formed...

" _ **KILL THEM ALL!**_ " Yonaga screamed out to the other shipgirls.

" _ **WITH PLEASURE, COMRADE!**_ " Gángut whooped as her rigging deployed.

As Ibaraki-dōji was instantly beheaded by one blow of Ataru's weapon, the crowd of normal people who were now staring at this awful battle from nearby then screamed as guns splayed from the shipgirls' rigging and fired, sending high explosive war shells into the oni. As they impacted, said warheads instantly detonated, ripping their metaphysical "bodies" apart and sending clouds of energy marking their souls right towards Velial, who had pulled out what looked like a large butterfly net to snare them. In the midst of fighting a butt-ugly demon that looked like Redet Lum's former fiancé Seq Rei, Missouri tensed on hearing the sound of four Mark 7 rifles being fired from somewhere to the north. "What on Earth...?" she then asked...

Everyone was then staggered as four shells plunged into the very trunk of the now-wrecked Tarōzakura, vaporizing it in a shower of magically-charged shards of wood that sliced into the still-living oni, ripping into flesh like grapeshot would an advancing storm of ground infantry on a battlefield two centuries before. The shipgirls themselves weren't wounded, their own powers protecting them from such a paltry attack even if the battle against the oni had badly burned and battered their hulls. Stunned to see his daughter so easily slaughtered by the impudent boy who had resisted all who tried to tame him, Shuten-dōji screamed as he raised his war club. " _ **YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR DEFIANCE, BOY!**_ " the oni king screamed...

...before a white clawed hand snared his arm. " _ **Fuck you, Jap!**_ "

The oni leader paled on hearing that hissing voice, then he turned...

...to see a phenomenally angry southern war princess standing behind him now, a murderous look on her face as all her own weapons deployed. " _ **All your kind are**_ **old** _ **and**_ **rotting** _ **, Shuten-dōji**_ ," Nampō snarled. " _ **Now DIE, baby-killer!**_ "

Her weapons fired, disintegrating the oni king in one salvo. People ducked that before they turned to see the seething Abyssal battleship princess standing there, glaring wrathfully at the hole where the Tarōzakura had stood. " _ **Come out of there, memory vampire**_ ," Nampō snarled as the air around her exploded in flames, she crackling her knuckles. " _ **Release my little sister or I'll have the Earth Angel's last host make you feast on the memories of the day the Death God touched him on the Plains of Morningstar! I doubt these humans could tolerate THAT being force-fed into their very SOULS...!**_ "

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" **Falla...?** "

People stared at a wide-eyed Ataru. "Tarúsha, you know what she's talking about?" Gángut demanded as she helped the dazed Roma back to her feet after she was bashed down by one oni before Ōi sent a fusillade of torpedoes flying into him.

The machine-man nodded. " **I met a pale-skinned girl in town near the main park before I went on my trip to Sagussa, Galína** ," he stated. " **I didn't know at the time she was an Abyssal, but she looked a lot like Hoppō does now.** "

" _ **You played with her. She liked you. You were always nice to her**_ ," Nampō stated with an appreciative smile.

" _ **YOU DARE SELL OUT HUMANITY TO THE ABYSSALS, ATARU?!**_ "

Ataru sighed. " **Excuse me for a moment while I go deal with these TRAITORS to the HUMAN RACE!** "

" _ **WHAT?! HOW DARE YOU, MOROBOSHI ATARU?! YOU WILL...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...!**_ "

People gasped as he effortlessly swung around, the soulsword blade ripping through the now-ghostly image of his original chief "rival" for the hand of Redet Lum. As the screaming onryō which had once been the living spirit of the leader of Lum's Stormtroopers howled in pained agony while his links to this life were brutally shred from him, Negako looked over her shoulder from her position in front of a white-faced Sakurambō Sakura, one hand holding a struggling Sakurambō Hayao in place with little effort. " _ **Velial, their souls are yours as well. Even the one Tamamo slew before this incident began**_ ," the grandmaster declared in a ki-charged voice, which made the demon's eyes widen in delight at such a bounty while Shūtarō and his companions all turned white with horror on realizing how _little_ their dead classmates mattered to Ataru's adopted sister.

Velial cackled. "My thanks, Negako! Sic 'em, boys!"

The hellhounds in the sidecar of his motorcycle howled with delight as they leapt out of their perch and charged right at the now-appearing spirits, who were screaming in terrified fright on realizing that their last hopes of getting vengeance on the bastard that had so corrupted their "pure" Redet Lum had ultimately led to THIS. Watching them go, Ataru shook his head before he noted out of the corner of his eye that a still-living kitsune that had been the instigator of this fight was moving to crawl away from the scene even if her whole body was badly burnt and bruised. Before Tamamo could get far, a woman in a white shrine miko's clothes then appeared before her, making the ancient fox spirit look up into a face that was struggling mightily to maintain some human shape even if her own four tails were out and her teeth were now displayed and pointed. " _ **Haru...!**_ " Tamamo moaned as her eyes teared in relief on recognizing an old ally of hers. " _ **Good! Now we can...!**_ "

The _click!_ of a revolver's hammer pulled to the firing position made her stop as she stared into the open maw of a weapon that had been specifically modified to fire mesonium warheads. " _ **You can die, old 'friend'**_ ," Ono Haru snarled.

The Clarkson M34 bucked as it fired, sending a .44 bullet right into Tamamo's head to shatter half the skull and rip whatever links bound the older kitsune to this life away from her. Velial screamed out in delight as he snared her drifting soul with his net while his hellhounds were busy ripping apart the souls of the boys that had died two nights before, he babbling about the incredible bonus he was going to get out of this trip to the mortal realms. Seeing this hideous sacrifice, Sakura growled as she burst past Negako, drawing out several ofuda as she charged at the young man who had been the bane of her life for over a year. " _ **EVIL SPIRIT! BEGONE!**_ " she screamed out as she flung the enchanted sheets of paper at the back of Ataru's head.

Seeing this, Haru shook her head. " _ **You idiot, Sakurambō...!**_ "

Sakura then gasped in horror as the ofuda burned up over a metre before they could make contact with Ataru's hair. " **Nice try** ," the machine-man said as his head dipped into a mockery of a smile before he spun around, the soulsword swinging.

A shriek of terrible pain escaped the shrine miko/school nurse as said blade ripped into her face, metaphysically cleaving her in half even if there was no physical wound left behind by the death-charged soul-cleaving weapon Ataru forged from his very heart. As she collapsed onto the ground, a miasma cloud of energy escaped her body, causing all the boys who had seen Ataru so easily strike down their favourite adult gape in horror. "Sakura-sensei was POSSESSED?!" Shūtarō exclaimed.

"In a way, she was, Shūtarō. As is Hayao here," Negako stated. " _ **Kontō...!**_ "

" _ **NO...!**_ " Cherry screamed...

...before the ninjutsu grandmaster's blade ripped into the old monk's skull, causing him to freeze for a moment before the ghostly image of an ancient monk seemed to pour out of him. " _ **HOW DARE YOU...?!**_ " the being screamed out.

Negako gazed at him. "Shall I give you both to Velial?"

The monk and the other spirit who had escaped Sakura — she having taken the form of some warrior-maiden who looked as if she could have come from Shigaten Benten's home planet — froze as they stared at the Earth Angel, then they turned slowly to gaze upon the demon that Negako's brother/last host had gladly summoned to this fight. After a moment, they both giggled in embarrassment before they vanished. As the boys seeing this all breathed out in relief, Negako placed the dazed Cherry onto the ground, then she turned to gaze upon the last of the Three Great Yōkai who had come to this hill today, he still battling it out with the nigh-immortal sixteenth president of the United States. "Do you need assistance, Abraham?"

Abraham Lincoln chuckled. "Not really, Negako..."

" _ **DIE!**_ " the ōtengu version of the seventy-fifth Heavenly Sovereign screamed out...

...before his head was cleaved off by the vampire hunter's meson-edged blade! " _ **BONUS!**_ " Velial screamed as he snared that one's soul in his net, that accompanied by his hellhounds howling their delight at their master's good fortune.

" **Is it enough?** " Ataru asked.

The demon perked on hearing the tone of genuine concern in the voice of the transformed teenage man who once defied him, then he hummed as he seemed to consider it for a moment. Much that he was still somewhat annoyed at Moroboshi Ataru, Velial knew this mortal now marched to the drum of a being to whom even the most powerful of the Old Ones, to say anything of the Great Beasts themselves, would fall to one day. "I believe so," he declared before he walked over to the handlebar of his motorcycle to tap the iPad-like device that was there. "Still, it is always good to make sure of this," he added with an amused grin as what remained of the oni and other creatures that had been here that day disintegrated, a cleansing wind then flowing over the hill. After tapping a control on the device, he scanned the readout there, then his eyes widened in delight. "Oh, I KNEW this was going to be a bonus! The so-called 'three great yōkai', the senior army of one of them, PLUS a tonne of stupid kids who followed that alien brat around all the time!" Then, much to the wide-eyed disbelief of the shipgirls and the lone Abyssal princess that was standing there, he started doing a happy dance. " _ **IT'S BONUS PAY FOR VELIAL DAY!**_ "

" **Congratulations** ," Ataru dryly noted...

...before he tensed as a strange fog seeped from the hole where the Tarōzakura had once been. " _ **FALLA!**_ " Nampō screamed out in relief as her own radar picked up the approach of a certain child princess that had been missing for more than a decade.

 _ **WHY — DID — YOU — DO — THIS?**_

"What the HELL?!" Zuikaku exclaimed as something else seemed to appear just as a moaning silver-haired child about the same age as Hoppō and the two other known child princesses encountered to date slowly crawled out of the hole.

" _ **FALLA!**_ " Nampō cried again as she pulled the dazed Falla out of the hole, causing the boys nearby — who had been joined by other members of the Mendō family — to gape on realizing that an ABYSSAL had been TRAPPED under the Tarōzakura!

 _ **WHY — DID — YOU — DO — THIS? AN-SWER — ME!**_

Ataru turned to stare at the ghostly baby-like being now drifting over the hole. As people fell silent, the mortal avatar of the Master of Entropy turned away from the Memory of Tomobiki. " **You are** _ **monsters**_ **. So-called 'gods' and 'devils' alike** ," he declared in an Arctic-cold voice as his good eye briefly swept over the people who NEVER endured what he did over the last year. " **You all treated me as your pet whipping boy because of a supposed 'accident' of birth and my taking the Promise to see Onē-san be allowed to have her own life, which supposedly upset all your worldviews to the point that you ended up** _ **serving**_ **Onē-san's purposes in giving her energy that could have helped her get her own body...and doomed all of you to be taken in by Velial here or someone like him.** " As people listening to this winced on hearing the darkness in his voice, Ataru took a breath. " **When my eyes were finally opened to the truth of what you all did to me while I was busy trying to survive Morningstar Plain by my master, I remembered a poignant saying a new friend I made told me that's a common idiom there.** " Here, he dipped his head in an imitation of a smile. " **'Treat someone as a pariah, he BECOMES a pariah.'** "

A faint chuckle escaped him. " **In other words, you all MADE me BECOME this!** "

As the Memory gasped on hearing that, a faint voice called out, "Ataru...?"

He turned to see a wide-eyed Falla gazing on him. " **The one you knew is no more, Falla** ," he then said. " **Let Nampō take you back to Ulithi so you can heal and try to live again. Maybe I'll come visit you in the future. Let's go, people.** "

"Allow me..."

People then perked as a bullroarer's drone echoed over the scene...

...and in a flash of magical energy, Ataru, Negako, all the shipgirls and Abyssals and Lincoln were teleported clear of the hill!

* * *

 _ **The Toranoseishin Tower, an hour later...**_

"Please give this back to Dean-san, Negako-san."

The semi-automatic revolver which had been the preferred sidearm of pilots of the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry for decades was handed grip-first over to the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū. "What made you so angry at Tamamo that you would actually borrow a mesonium-augmented pistol from Deannette of all people to see her slain?" Negako asked as she took the pistol from Haru, thumbing the latch to allow the cylinder to slide sideways away from the barrel so she could tap out the other shells, disarm the weapon and render it safe. "According to what my creator knew, you were a close friend of hers."

Haru smirked, glad she was calm now that she didn't have to fear people seeing her transform into her vulpine therianthrope form. Turning to gaze out at the growing evening descending over the cityscape around her, she focused on the now-bare Tarōzakura Hill. Noting people from the Mendō Clan's in-house construction force moving to clean up the wreckage, she smirked. Save for the one boy who had been murdered by Tamamo over an hour before — yet another one "lost" to the madness unleashed by that weird kami buried in that hill — there had been no fatalities, which had pleased many people across the nation. Roma and Kitakami had been wounded in the fight; they were now relaxing in the special shipgirl baths which had been installed in this building for emergency purposes. As for Nampō and Falla, both had been transported back to Ulithi Atoll by Uluṟu once Negako, her brother, the Rail-Splitter and the shipgirls who had gone to help suppress the Three Great Yōkai had been teleported off that hill. "I don't blame the Immortal Master for making that mistake," the shrine maiden said. "Given that there were times that Tamamo wasn't being a monster, she could be actually quite friendly to normal humans." Here, she shook her head. "She never approved of my choice of husbands and was responsible for the death of my first husband sometime before Gennō Shinshō exorcised her spirit during the reign of Go-Daigo Tennō. Sadly, not all of her moved on to the next life. The part of her that still deeply resented her being banished from the Imperial Court ages ago lingered around until she met the Oni Lord and began to haunt the countryside anew to seek her vengeance. Under different names, of course, to prevent the Immortal Master from realizing who she was." Here, she shook her head. "Yes, I had been friends with her in the past when I was a stupid and ignorant kit. Seeing what she did to my husband changed that."

Negako gazed at her, then she sighed as she slipped the unused shells into her pants pocket, then she put the revolver itself into the inside pocket of her tunic. "I doubt the Memory of Tomobiki will provoke issues in the future. The threat Nampō made to force-feed all of Ataru's memories of Morningstar Plain to overwhelm the minds of all who are touched by it has frightened it into submission for the time being. We will have to eventually seek a more permanent solution, but now is not the time."

"The news is already getting out."

Both women turned as a certain American fast battleship came up to join them, an iPad in hand. Taking it from Missouri, Negako scanned the headline banner from CNN's website: **THE TERMINATOR HAS COMPETITION!** As Haru cackled on seeing the well-shot image of Ataru-as-Cyborg fighting Ibaraki-dōji while the shipgirls at the scene duelled the others in her group, a churlish smile briefly flashed across the ninjutsu grandmaster's face. "Again, no mention of magic. Still, those who seek to enforce the Statute in Geneva and elsewhere will be displeased by this. See to it Konoe Konoemon knows of this, Marguerite." She handed the iPad back to the third of the Iowa-class battleships. "I am sure whoever is the Confederation's spokesperson in Mahora will be getting instructions from Babajide to press for suppression of information to block 'exposure'."

"Who's that, Negako?" Missouri asked.

"Babajide Akingbade is a Ugandan alumnus of Uagadou, Marguerite. He achieved his mastery in conjuration in 1937, just before the Wars of Liberation began. He currently serves as Chief of Staff for the International Confederation of Wizards and would take Albus Dumbledore's place as Supreme Mugwump should he lose support among the Wizengamot to continue to hold his current post in Geneva. Unlike most others from his country who have attended Uagadou after the Schwarze Mädchen destroyed the loyalty stone system spread across Britain's then-colonies on the continent, Babajide has always been enamoured by European wizarding culture. He could be seen as a 'traditional pureblood' by their standards."

Haru gaped. "A _**staleblood**_ from _**Uganda**_?! Is that even possible, Negako-san?!"

A faint smile crossed Negako's face. "His attitudes surprise me as well, Haru. Like most of those who have always acted to deserve Deannette's rather amusing appellation for them, Babajide is very much the hypocrite as well." As Haru smirked, Negako added, "He was a supporter of Idi Amin Dada when he was president of Uganda during the 1970s; at that time, Babajide was Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. He actually won Idi's tentative approval in 1978 to find a way to reactivate the loyalty stone system in the country to help keep the Statute intact. Fortunately for him, Idi was deposed thanks to that border dispute with Tanzania. When he lost his main 'muggle' supporter, Babajide faded into the background; his enemies in the Ugandan Wizengamot suspected something like that was happening and had gained the assurance of the Tanzanian Magical Congress that what remained of the loyalty stone system would be removed from the country."

"I'm surprised they didn't impeach or lynch that bastard!" Missouri hissed as Haru shook her head. "There were nimmibs in my crew who had relatives who went to the Spanish colonies in 1938 when the Lonely Times started up to help heal the natives. The horror stories they heard about what those systems did to people in Africa would make anyone's stomach turn. How could someone WANT that system to go back on-line to make people 'toe the party line' like that?!"

"Babajide was wise to remain silent about his worldview until he found new patrons to win election as the Ugandan ambassador to the Confederation, Marguerite. Once he was there, he demonstrated quite exceptional administrative skills, thus being voted as Chief of Staff within five years after arriving in Geneva. He is a hard-liner when it comes to enforcement of the Statute of Secrecy, though. He knows deep down that normal people are quite dangerous; the Abyssals and the shipgirls prove that point very well and he has personally inspected the areas where Deannette's troupe fought Josef's creations all over North America while working for the Confederation." As Haru shook her head, Negako smirked. "Babajide loathes them, but he is also afraid of them, so he wants the wall to stay erect. He does not realize that the wall is built on a foundation of quicksand and the typhoon season has been moving to melt that foundation for the last decade and more."

"I wish I could do something that could see a more sensible person put in that position," a man hailed from nearby.

"Albus." Negako then smiled as a certain phoenix flew over to perch himself on her shoulder. "You are not bothered by moving so many people about, Fawkes?" she then asked, earning her a reassuring trill from the mystical firebird.

Albus Dumbledore chuckled as he came over, immediately moving to courtly kiss the hand of both the four-tailed kitsune shrine miko, then the namesake of the Show-Me State. "Fortunately, several gamájun friends of Fawkes' were happy to help transport Reiko, Dionne, Harry and Hoppō here once the news of young Falla got to Trischen. Trista herself wanted to come meet her, but was advised by Luise von Bismarck to remain on the island while Linn secures her creations there."

"It surprised me that Linn did not do so earlier," Negako noted.

"She was busy securing her position as Lady Heinrich of Swinford so she could take her place in the Wizengamot, not to mention performing her nominal duties as Elizabeth's chief interrogator and commander of her intelligence company," Dumbledore stated as awed gasps echoed from nearby, making him turn as a group of wide-eyed freshman students stared around the beautiful reception hall of the main tower one floor down from Moroboshi Hiromi's personal quarters and the guest rooms. "Please be careful when you touch things, children," he then bade. "Ask any of the muggleborn for advice. I'm sure Matriarch Moroboshi's staff will be happy to show you around and answer questions, but don't provoke things."

"Yes, Professor!" many of Harry Potter's classmates called out.

"Ah! I didn't expect you to bring an entire mob here, Kōchō-sensei!"

Dumbledore chuckled as someone jogged down the spiral stairs from the upper floor. "Once the news of your brother's old childhood playmate came to us on Trischen, they weren't going anywhere but wherever Harry went, Hiromi. My apologies."

"Oh, don't apologize!" Hiromi declared before she gazed on the many wide-eyed freshman, who were now staring at her. "Welcome to Tomobiki, minna-san," she said, sensing immediately that Dumbledore had made sure that translation charms had been applied to his charges. "I'm sure Harry-chan's already regaled you about all the horror stories of this place. I'm Moroboshi Hiromi, Matriarch of the Moroboshi Clan of Mutsu and Moroboshi Ataru's adopted sister; by your ranking system in the Wizengamot, I am head of a Noble and Most Ancient House." As the purebloods among the crowd instantly straightened themselves, she winked at them. "For those who do know the stories of this place, I'm a film-replica of Onii-san that was created by accident thanks to the underlying ki and mana energy of this place and a malfunctioning camera my would-be sister-in-law brought to class one day to help Onii-san and the others complete a project about school violence."

"Merlin! Muggles can do that?!" Theodore Nott demanded.

"You'd be amazed at what normals can do, Theodore-chan," Hiromi stated as she tried not to wince on hearing that common term British wizards used for normal humans. "You'd also be very SCARED about what ALIEN normals can do, even if Lum-san herself could be rated a metahuman by our standards given her flight, telepathy and bio-electrical powers." As some of the children winced, Hiromi sighed. "My soul was pulled from a sort of 'holding status' by Onē-san here shortly after everyone was forced to attend Onii-san's 'wedding' on planet Uru one month ago, then placed in the body you see me have now," she added as she indicated Negako, who nodded politely to them. "I'm a Terran-form Avalonian with the full set of psionic powers, plus the necessary combat skills inherited from Onē-san which can help defend me from potential threats."

"What just happened here, Lady Moroboshi?" Neville Longbottom asked. "I didn't really understand the message Lady Yamamoto and Lady Doolittle received from Lady Captain Itō concerning this fight your brother was just involved in."

"Ah! Come over by the window and I'll explain..."

* * *

 _ **A floor down...**_

"Is the damage bad, Mister Potter?"

Harry Potter perked on hearing that question from his potions professor, then he sighed. He and Severus Snape, along with Hermione Granger, Pansy Parkinson and her father Malcolm, were seated in an observation room overlooking the "healing chamber" that had been built at Moroboshi Negako's direct order to be there for shipgirls when they were needed. Right now, two of the ten baths in the room were filled with bruised women now having their wounds and damage dealt with. Kneeling beside the sleeping Kitakami was Ōi, who now held her hand. Roma was being watched over by Ataru, who had transformed back from the Cyborg, though many parts of his body that didn't change to neutronium-hard metal appeared burnt and scarred. To the enhanced mage-sight of the former Death Eater and the traditional magical Lord of Keerford, there was still a lot of dark magic desperately trying to worm its way into Ataru's body, though his own Avalonian powers and the might of the terrible monster within his very soul was doing well in keeping it back. Watching over them both now were Akashi as well as a silver-haired shipgirl Harry recognized as Dewey, the first floating drydock built for the United States Navy; the adopted native of Sparrows Point in Maryland and Montpelier in Vermont was the Japanese repair ship's main assistant in Yokosuka.

"It's worse for Kiko-san than Roberta-san, Sensei," Harry then said as Hermione grasped his shoulder in support. "Kiko-san is just a light cruiser. Armour-wise, she's nowhere as invulnerable as Roberta-san is. If what Mary-sensei and Arisa-sensei told me was true, if she had been at sea when she got that damage, Kiko-san would have been sunk." As Hermione and Pansy gasped on hearing that, Harry sighed. "Otsune-san must be really torn about this. Shipgirls aren't expected to go fight on land and deal with evil yōkai like that. That she was able to do it and come out of it just with wounds says a lot, but that's not a normal thing for any shipgirl to do when they're ashore. Maybe Yoiko-obasan could do it because she was magically trained by Patricia-sensei and her sisters, but not Kiko-san." He then sighed as Akashi walked over to speak to his adopted mother about what was happening while Dewey's faerie dockyard workers swarmed over both Roma and Kitakami.

"She performed well, young admiral," a familiar cold woman's voice echoed from nearby, making people gaze over at the seventh carrier of Operation Z, who was now standing beside her second-oldest battleship sister as they observed the repair ship and the floating drydock work on the two wounded shipgirls. "She enhanced her karma considerably, as did her sister. Tennō will be very pleased once he receives the report of the disposal of his cursed ancestor and the others."

"It amazes me that you don't corral those things and put them into reservations, Captain," Malcolm noted. "If they're running loose like that all the time, that's a threat to everyone, magical and muggle alike."

Yonaga chuckled as Musashi gave Pansy's father a disapproving look. "Be at peace, Mutsuko. Malcolm-dono doesn't understand," the carrier chided. "Malcolm-dono, many yōkai are seen as agents of the Kami who are subordinate to Amaterasu-ōmikami Herself. To bring harm to such yōkai when they have done nothing to merit such is seen as a direct offence on the Kami, thus avoided. That has always been the great difference between European and Oriental magical worldviews. You see such beings as 'creatures' that need to be regulated. We respect them for what they are and if they choose to live among humans magical and non-magical alike, so much the better for them. Yes, there are the risks of evil yōkai striking out at innocents. Tonight's incident proved that beyond any shadow of a doubt. That is the risk of living. But the same risks exist for normal humans, magical humans and metahumans as well. Why hold it to different standards?"

Hearing that calm dissertation, Malcolm sighed before he nodded, an amused smile on his face. Seeing that, Yonaga smirked as she looked back into the healing chamber. "Ravenclaw," the carrier then stated.

He gaped at her as Pansy laughed. "You got called out, Dad!" his daughter teased.

"You were a Ravenclaw, Oji-san?" Harry asked.

Malcolm nodded. "Yes, Harry, I was. Pansy's mother was the Slytherin in our family." As Harry nodded in understanding, the current chief executive officer of Parkinson Enterprises LLC on both sides of the security divide added, "People in my social class would never publicly admit such even on pain of death or permanent torture, Captain Itō, but many European purebloods who have a much bigger understanding of the world in general felt a lot of personal gratitude to Marshal Yomigawa for what she did years ago. Her exposing that whole loyalty stone thing showed us how far 'stalebloods' on the Continent and in Britain were willing to go because they believed their ways were superior than other people's ways. They wanted it all in order to make sure we all could stay safe as well as stay in power. Given how much they hurt people just because they were afraid of different ways of magic, not to mention metahumans...!" He then focused on Ataru. "Doesn't this bother him, Harry?"

"It bothers Nii-ya to a great extent, sir," a strange voice then declared, making both Malcolm and Severus gape as they snap-drew their wands and pointed them off to one side of the observation room. Now stepping out of the shadow was a very pretty raven-haired woman about the same age as Ataru, dressed in a sundress that showed off very beautiful legs. "Good reflexes, by the way," she then said as she moved to stand close to the window and gaze into the healing chamber.

"Who are you, Onē-chan?" Harry asked as Hermione and Pansy gazed warily at the newcomer. "I don't remember seeing you in pictures Hoppō-chan sent to me after she met up with Hiromi-nēchan and learned what was happening with Ataru-niichan."

The newcomer nodded in approval. "You remember hearing about the clone gun incident?"

That made his jaw drop. "I thought..."

"Lum's so-called 'most faithful' had other ideas," Tsuchidō Otome said. "Doesn't surprise me if you don't recognize me, Harry-chan. My equivalent in _Sister Princess_ would be Chikage. I'm sure you've heard of _Colourful Kiss_."

That made Harry blanch. "That...lewd version of _SisPri_?!"

"Same."

He made a face. "Ewww!"

"Care to explain, Mister Potter?" Severus asked.

Harry sighed, then he launched into a dissertation of the clone gun incident, then moved to introduce everyone to the dating simulation games Otome just referenced. By the time he was done, Otome had walked over to slip an arm around Musashi's, making the super-battleship blush at such attention. Seeing that, both Pansy and Hermione smirked; even if their own mage-senses weren't anywhere close to being as developed as the former's father or their potions teacher, they could sense that this Avalonian "sister" of their current host's brother had become smitten with the second of the Yamato-class. "Dear Merlin!" Malcolm then groaned. "It's a pity that time-travel accident occurred! If those aliens were THAT out of control...!"

"'Lum came and sanity went'."

That was Ataru, who was gazing in amusement at the people in the observation lounge. "You okay, Nii-chan?" Harry asked.

He sighed. "I've been better, Harry-chan. Rather nice to finally exorcise those damned spirits out of my life. Soon as the missus here is fully healed up, I'm going back to Sasebo where there's a nice bed with our names on it."

The younger man stuck out his tongue. "Lewd!"

"You'd be singing a different tune soon enough, kiddo!"

"Lewd!"

Ataru chuckled, then he focused on Severus. "You already have the shipping chart set up, Snape-hakase?" At the potions master's surprise look, the younger man winked. "Reiko-san told me you were a friend of the kid's mother from her hometown in the Midlands. Onē-san told me some more things." He focused his brown eyes on Severus' black orbs. «Like an oath you took after you finally realized where, quoting Cass, the 'bad paint' was going to lead you?» he telepathically added.

The older man smirked. And they called this man the idiot of idiots in this town? "I'd rather answer that question in private."

"I hope no one is making bets about my son's love life, Severus-san!" Nagato called out from inside the healing chamber.

Severus ducked that statement as Yonaga laughed and Harry's face turned as red as a cherry...

* * *

 _ **The Trischen School of Magic, that moment (local time: Noon)...**_

"How are you, Naomi?"

Hearing that calm statement from the middle-aged witch who was just teleported into the main reception hall by a beautiful phoenix, the first nuclear-powered surface warship ever built smirked. "You're still too square at times, Mama S," Long Beach said as she gazed upon the former "magical president" who had presided over the Department of Magic during the Roaring Twenties and the first full decade of the "phony war" launched by Gellert Grindelwald in his campaign to bring down the Statute of Secrecy and unleash the Greater Good. "What brings you to this happening place?" she asked before she got a pained look from Seraphina Picquery. "Oh, man! Don't tell me some magical square took a stupid pill today!"

"You could say that," the native of Savannah in Georgia that currently served as Magical Ambassador Extraordinary of the United States of America to the International Confederation of Wizards breathed out as she gave the slender cruiser a knowing look. "Given how good your sense of the Astral Plane actually is, what do you know of the incident an hour ago in the old Tomobiki exclusion zone set up by the Heavenly Sovereign when the aliens came last year to 'invade' us?"

The cruiser known also as Naomi Haight-Ashbury rolled her eyes. "Some old demon squares decided to crash the scene in Partytown because they didn't like the idea of the A-man deciding he wasn't going to be their pet whipping boy anymore. Some poor kid that caught a bad bout of 'Lum-itis' that was pretty rampant among the boys in Partytown got killed, then A-man had to step in to put a stop it it. The fox-girl that killed poor Haru's first hubby started it. A-man and the Earth Child, not to mention Uncle Abe, Big Y, her sis Big M, A-man's main squeeze, Square Crane, the Torpedo Twins, Big Mo and Comrade Silver Hair finished it. Didn't need to drop a meson Katie on them, but Renée was there. Found a kid princess, too."

"Crazy One's friend...found another sister?!"

Picquery spun around...

...then she gaped before she knelt before the child princess who just joined them, accompanied by one of her light cruisers. "Hello, little one," the former secretary of magic greeted. "You must be Trista. Our friends in Germany just told us about you." As Trista blushed as she felt herself relax around this motherly sparkle who reminded her a lot of the first highmistress of the school, Picquery said, "Yes, Lady Uluṟu was there in Tomobiki just an hour ago. It turns out that a princess like you had been captured by some evil creature and held under a mountain for over a decade." As Trista snarled on hearing that, the native of Savannah raised a hand. "It's alright. Lady Uluṟu and several others were happy to rescue Miss Falla, then turned her over to Lady Nampō so she could go somewhere peaceful to heal. The one who did that to her understands never to do it again."

Trista blinked, then she sniffed. "Why...?"

"Because she was befriended by the Earth Angel's last host."

That made the child princess blink. "The one who wears the death armour?"

"The same. Mister Moroboshi wasn't impressed by what happened to your sister. He made it very clear to this being that he will not tolerate hurting Miss Falla or any of your kind ever again. If it does happen, he'll hurt her badly."

Hearing that, Trista nodded. "Trista will tell Big Sister Isley."

With that, she marched off, her cruiser escort right behind her. Long Beach watched them go, then she smirked. "So how are the squares taking the news where you camp out, Mama S?" the cruiser then asked as she gave Picquery a look.

The native of Savannah sighed. "Not good."

"Amin's butt-buddy starting some bad stuff?"

"You hit the target."

"Papa J know?"

"I just told him before coming here. He asked me to pass it on to you."

The cruiser sighed before a serious look crossed her face, a VERY rare event for the likes of Long Beach. "Two things you got to keep in mind, Madame Secretary," she then said in a very cold voice, which instantly made Picquery's back stiffen and her greying-black hair instantly rise in dreaded fear. "Number One: What do you know about the status of Marshal Yomigawa?"

"She's retired," the former "magical president" stated. "Released from all official duties as Supreme General of Magic for Japan at the direct order of the late Heavenly Sovereign in the magical side of the San Francisco Peace Treaty that finally ended the Pacific side of World War Two. Currently, she lives in a shrine near Nagasaki. She advises the ruling council of the Eight Commanderies from time to time, plus helps in magical incidents, but that's it. I know Albus visits her from time to time. There's much respect between them even given the marshal's long friendship with Mister Grindelwald." As Long Beach gazed at her, Picquery winked. "Yes, I know he's out of Nurmengard and helping out in Berlin, Naomi."

A laugh answered her. "Good. Your relatives that served among my plankowners always said you were a smart lady." As Picquery blushed, Long Beach sighed. "Slight mistake about the marshal. In that rescript the Heavenly Sovereign released in 1946, all he said was that the marshal was formally _**relieved**_ of all day-to-day functions as Mahō-Shōgun, that being taken over by the Board of Directors for the Eight Commanderies as the regional Magical Associations, with one acting as Chief Director. Her actual appointment as Mahō-Shōgun was NEVER taken away from her, Seraphina. She can be called back to duty if the Heavenly Sovereign issues another Imperial Rescript to override what his father issued back then." As the former alumnus of the Horned Serpent House in Ilvermorny gaped on hearing that, Long Beach smirked. "He wasn't a fool, Mama S. He knew that Tsukiko kicked up one hell of a shitstorm when she and her army went totally crazy on the stalebloods. He knew some people would be spoiling for revenge. Believe me, Tsukiko's done a lot more over the years to make sure the idiots in Europe don't try to go spoil things because of relations with Nerio and all that stupid stuff." She then raised a finger as she gave the older woman a knowing look. "A lot of it being raised in recent years because of Amin's butt-buddy."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"That son-of-a...!" Picquery hissed out. "That FOOL!"

"Yeah!" Long Beach said. "Now here's the second part: You remember the Mahō-chokugo no Dokuritsu put out in '37?"

Picquery paled on hearing that. The Magical Imperial Rescript of Independence had been issued by Shōwa Tennō after he personally experienced a sample of the horrid magic which had been detected by members of Yomigawa Tsukiko's special "research group" that had later formed the heart of the Greater East Asia Liberation Army in clandestine missions in Vietnam and India earlier that year. Said rescript had been the equivalent of a massive blasting hex on the International Confederation of Wizards; it had started a trend where magical governments — including those who had been formed in the wake of the start of the Lonely Times among former Spanish, Portuguese and Italian colonies around the world — moved to shear away from Geneva's oversight to form a more egalitarian "international conference of magical communities" championed also by Gellert Grindelwald at the direct orders of Adolf Hitler. That "mudblood rebellion" — as the people who had long pushed for the use of loyalty stones laid out over much of Asia and Africa called it — had been the big instigation of the Wars of Liberation, which the Confederation BARELY survived...even if it had been reformed thanks to its first post-war leader, Heather Thompkins.

"It's still on the books, you mean," the former secretary of magic stated.

"Yeah," the missile cruiser affirmed. "Never overridden in all the years since that bad scene ended. Sure, the Commanderies send an ambassador to jaw-jaw with the squares in Geneva, but there's no respect whatsoever for most of that bunch there. Amin's butt-buddy's not the only square who's pissed off Professor Konoe and his friends over the years, Seraphina. You don't know how many times he's been tempted to visit the Heavenly Sovereign to get the marshal back on duty. Especially in the last couple of years. This whole crap with Reiko's little kid that toad-bitch in London-town tried to start that forced Mama E to put her down? It wasn't just in London-town where that crap started to try to make righteous folks all over bow to the squares again, Madame Secretary. You want to start a war with _**shipgirls**_?! Especially one with little Harry's connections on both sides of the Big Pond?!" Long Beach smirked. "The _**Angry One**_ 's got a lot of sharp daishō sets she can use, ma'am."

"Freiedame Sekretärin Picquery. It has been a while."

The former "magical president" tensed before she turned...

...before she was frozen as a pair of almond-shaped eyes behind reading glasses adjusted to allow the Nasty Nag of Northeim to use her considerable skills in Legilimency focused directly on her. "Meine Generalmajorin wishes to speak to you," Linn Heinrich stated before she looked down a hallway, bracing herself to attention as she clicked her heels in salute.

Picquery gulped as the blonde native of Yorkshire with the blue-grey eyes who had been one of the icons of Grindelwald's warrior-witch brigade that had terrorized a whole continent stepped into the reception hall. "General Gibbon," she greeted in a polite voice, surprised that she hadn't apparated to get as far away from Albus Dumbledore's top transfiguration student from the NEWT Class of 1938 as she could. As good of a fighter she was, she was no match for Elizabeth Gibbon.

Seeing the fearful look on the older woman's face, the matriarch of the Most Noble House of Gibbon of Craiglockhart smirked. "It's been a while, Madame Secretary," Elizabeth stated. "Much more for you than for me or my coven-sisters. I'm sure by now, President Bartlet has briefed you on what happened to us." At Picquery's faint nod, the leader of the Black Maidens then smiled a huntsman's grimace. "I hear there are troublemakers in Geneva right now. Including the one Lady Long Beach just spoke of to you." At Picquery's surprised look, Elizabeth smirked. "Geneva is not far from _**Strasbourg**_ , after all. Where my current commander is based." At the confused look from the native of Savannah, the young brigadier — as she was properly ranked in the Specialized Warfare List of the British Army by order of the Queen, affiliated with the Yorkshire Regiment — tried not to sigh at such stupid ignorance. "Major General _**Jessica Dover**_ , Madame Secretary," she explained.

THAT name made Picquery turn as white as a ghost. "So what's it going to be, Seraphina?" Elizabeth then asked. "We do a quiet accident to remove him and his friends from the chambers? Or does Jessica get to feast on their SOULS?!"

A stunned silence fell over the reception hall...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Andréevskij Flag** — (Saint) Andrew's Flag, the blue-on-white ensign of the Russian Navy; **Órden Suvórova** — Order of Suvórov, a Russian medal awarded to formation commanders and affiliated personnel for skillful organization of operations and management of troops; **Kontr-Admirál** — Counter Admiral, the Russian rank title for a rear admiral (NATO rank code OF-7); **Stárshij práporschik** — Literally "senior flag bearer", the Russian Army equivalent of a Canadian Army chief warrant officer (NATO rank code OR-9); **Magícheskaja Milítsija Federácii** — Magical Militia of the (Russian) Federation; **Famiglia di Vongola** — Vongola Family; **Il Paese della Mafia** — Mafia Land; **Nekul'túrnyj monstr** — Uncultured monster; **Sháshka** — A single-edged cavalry sabre without any hand guard protecting the hilt which was traditionally used by Cossacks and other mountain tribes native to the Caucasus region of the old Russian Empire; **Zdrávstvujte** — Hello; **Sekretärin** — Secretary; **ÈM** — Short for **Èskádrennykh Minonóstsev** ("squadron torpedo boat"), the Russian term for a destroyer; **BK** — Short for **Bol'shój Kréjser** ("large cruiser"), the Russian term for a battlecruiser.

Note the human names of **USS** _ **San Diego**_ ( **Rafaella Cabrillo** ) and **USS** _ **O'Bannon**_ ( **Matilda O'Bannon** ) are my creation and not derived from _Greatest Generation_. However, their histories are pretty much the same as was depicted in that story.

Note that upgrades for Russian shipgirls are marked with ordinals such as " **Pérvyj** " (first) and " **Vtorój** " (second) in lieu of the cardinal numbers used in the game.

Names and patronymics for non-Russians listed here:

 **Matíl'da Preslíovna** — Matilda, daughter of Presley  
 **Margaríta Márkovna** — Marguerite, daughter of Mark  
 **Atarú Mútovich** — Ataru, son of Muchi

 **Sutoku Tennō** (birth name **Akihito** ) (1119-64) was the seventy-fifth Heavenly Sovereign of Japan according to the traditional count. He ruled from 1123-42, when he was deposed due to his failure to put down a rebellion. His transformation into an ōtengu (great tengu) was spoken of in many legends around the same time those legends of **Tamamo-no-Mae** and **Shuten-dōji** were written of in classical literature. **Ibaraki-dōji** is another great oni spoken of in legends. In those stories, this being's gender is up to conjecture, to say anything of his/her relationship with Shuten-dōji. This being's depiction here is my creation.

The name of **HMAS** _ **Uluṟu**_ ( **Alkawari Kulitja** ) is taken from the famous inselberg ("island mountain") also known by the English term **Ayers Rock**. The mountain itself is located in the southern part of the Commonwealth's Northern Territory, about 450 kilometres by road from Alice Springs. Given that the World War Two generation of Australian magical battleships were named after the states and territories of the Commonwealth, it was elected to use the native name of that mountain to represent the **Northern Territory** as a whole. Note that the "ṟ" sound reflects the **retroflex approximant** sound (IPA symbol **[ɻ]** ), similar in pronunciation to the way some Americans and West Country English pronounce the first sound in " _ **r**_ _ **ed**_ ".

 **Velial** first appeared in the _Yatsura_ manga story "The Devil's Run" (manga chapter #37). The **Memory of Tomobiki** was the main antagonist of the fourth movie, _Lum the Forever_. The **spiritual guardians** of Sakura and Cherry first appeared in the manga story "The Big Game" (manga chapter #11).

 **Go-Daigo Tennō** (birth name **Takaharu** ) (1288-1339) was the ninety-sixth Heavenly Sovereign of Japan, who ruled from 1318-39. He was the second one to take the name "Daigo" ("the essence of Buddhism"); the first **Daigo Tennō** (birth name **Atsuhito** ) (885-930 CE) was the sixtieth Heavenly Sovereign and ruled from 897-930.

 **Babajide Akingbade** was first mentioned in _Pottermore_.

Shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **AUSTRALIA  
**_ **HMAS Uluṟu** — Alkawari Renée Kulitja

 _ **RUSSIA  
**_ **BK Borodíno** — Vavára Mikhájlovna Kutúzova  
 **ÈM Gremjáschij** — Dína Vladímirovna Nikítina

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS San Diego** — Jazmín Rafaella Cabrillo  
 **USS O'Bannon** — Matilda Patricia O'Bannon  
 **USS Fletcher** — Frederica Friday Fletcher  
 **USS Radford** — Mary Harriet Radford  
 **USS Jenkins** — Tracey Alexandra Jenkins  
 **USS Dewey (1905)** — Mary Dewey


	19. A Gift From the Witch of November

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, the Toranoseishin Tower, Wednesday 24 May, nightfall...**_

"What's happening right now, Hiromi?"

Moroboshi Hiromi smirked as she gazed at the glittering cityscape beyond the heavy windows of the main recreation room in the upper part of the tower, a beautiful sunset now making the sky glow to the west beyond the peaks of the Kantō Mountains. "News of what you did is sinking in among your old classmates," she said as she gazed at her brother/template before looking once more at the area around her current residence; she had received a report from her personal troupe of bodyguards, the Kuromoroboshi shinobi who were the senior practitioners of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū below the grandmaster of that school herself. "While there are some in town who are now screaming for you to be committed to an insane asylum — or to be turned over to some research group to have your ability to transform into the Cyborg suppressed so that you wouldn't 'threaten' others again — most others are just wanting you to keep away from them. Of course, in her calls to have you committed to whomever listens to her, Baka Kā-san is demanding that she be given control of all the money Obā-san bequeathed you in her will." She shook her head. "Naturally, no one is really listening to her, which just makes it all the more frustrating for that idiot."

"That Fidelius we got Negi to put up still there?" Moroboshi Ataru asked.

"Of course it is."

He laughed as he considered what had to be going through his mother's mind right now. Getting that particular information-masking charm set up with Negi Springfield's help shortly after Ataru had been sent back in time and transported to the planet Okusei — the request to see that done had been relayed to the young battle-mage from Wales by the Dragonspeaker, who was known to many natives of Nerio — had been the wisest decision of all. Doing that made sure there was no way Moroboshi Kinshō or her husband could embezzle the trust fund set aside for Ataru by his late grandmother Nagaiwakai in her will. While that did make Ataru's mother even more mercenary than she normally had been before Redet Lum came into their lives — as witness the whole thing with Parent-Teacher Day nine months ago when she tried to scam both Mendō Haruka and Lum's mother Redet Chim out of a considerable amount of funds, never mind the "agreement" made with Lum's parents concerning a possible marriage between her and Ataru while they were busy dealing with Queen Elle — it also made sure that Ataru could use those funds when he came back to Earth and began residing in Italy six months ago, living in Taranto with a considerable amount of comfort. In addition, it made sure that any possible temporal paradoxes couldn't occur if Kinshō tried to force Lum into using her own many technological advantages to bring the Inshin Group to heel; doing that would have revealed things that would have led to a catastrophe. Given Lum's attitudes at the time, incalculable damage could have been done.

Sadly, there was no hope in trying to make the woman understand that certain things had to be the way they were. More so than most mothers, the former Yamaguchi Kinshō was a control fanatic, such stemming from the tragic "death" of Ataru's twin brother Kaeru when they were three; thanks to Ataru's friends from Noukiios, he knew the true fate of what befell his twin. Kinshō wanted things set in a certain way and people to behave in a certain manner. If they defied her wishes, that had to be put down as quickly, as harshly as possible. While she had never been physically abusive when it came to her only surviving son, the verbal abuse had always stung deep down, even when she tried to keep it private from him. Of course, he kept track of such incidents in his _**real**_ diary, which had been relocated to the local branch of Inshin Bank as soon as he caught Miyake Shinobu glancing into it about a year before the Tag Race brought Lum into his life. Thinking of that act of security and how easily he had bluffed Lum when it came to what his true thoughts really were, Ataru then smirked as he remembered the constant frustration his "wife" always expressed when she tried to follow him whenever he visited the bank to put a new entry into the diary. Given how easily Negi's spell had made the warlord's daughter from Uru turn away from approaching the Toranoseishin Tower, it proved that no matter how advanced Urusian technology was, it wasn't a match for meson-powered magic. Even if Ataru _**then**_ didn't know the truth of what was stopping Lum from sticking her nose in business that wasn't her own, seeing her NOT get her way — even with the help of friends like Mendō Shūtarō and Lum's own "stormtroopers", not to mention people such as Sakurambō Hayao and his niece Sakura — always warmed his heart deep down.

Much that he cared for her, he never cared for her "my way or get zakked" attitudes when it came to how he lived his life.

To believe that Fate, through the great sky dragon Nengmek'i, planned to throw such a curve ball into that insane mess...!

"Ataru!"

He perked, then looked over his shoulder...

...before the metaphysical equivalent of almost nineteen thousand tonnes of heavy cruiser slammed into him. "Are you hurt?!" Prinz Eugen demanded. "I saw what you had to do to stop those awful things! How could they do that to you...?!"

" _ **RINNIE!**_ "

She yelped as he gave her an annoyed look. The parts of his face that normally didn't transform when he donned his armour were still red and chapped in places, though it was healing thanks to the regenerative enzymes he got from Negako now in his bloodstream. "Okay! I'm fine! Will you get off me, please?!" he demanded, which made her wince. "Look, I appreciate how much you care, but I don't need to be smothered like that, alright?! I got enough of that crap from Lum! Back off, okay?!"

A hurt look crossed her face, though she did comply. "Ataru...?!"

Seeing that, he sighed, mentally kicking himself. Much that he did care for the third of the Admiral Hipper-class cruisers and had done his best to understand all the issues she had to deal with, the shipgirl also known as Catarina von Savoyen could be so damn _clingy_ at times. Hurt because her knowledge of the Holocaust effectively forced her to separate herself from the modern incarnation of her old service — which ALSO separated her from someone she deeply cared for and saw as a big sister figure as she did her own sisterships Admiral Hipper and Blücher — she found herself accepted by her current service with open arms...yet also emotionally alone; all the others of her class served in the German Navy or the Estonian Navy. Cursing himself for allowing his glands to make him lose control during the time they had slept together — along with San Francisco — after the cruisers helped escort a convoy from Los Angeles to Taranto through the Panama Canal shortly after Ataru had gone on dates with Jean Bart, Hood, Gángut, Missouri, Zuikaku, Kitakami and Ōi, he gave her an apologetic look as he drew her into his arms, making her shudder as her hull melted against his body. "I'm sorry," he whispered as he tilted her head so they could kiss; such forms of contact was something Roma tolerated, but nothing beyond that. "Something's bugging you, Mausebär."

She blushed madly on being called that — it was his private nickname for her — then she sighed. "Ja. Luisa..." She then shrugged as she pulled away from him, though her blue eyes were tearing. "She...well, she has..."

Both Ataru and Hiromi gazed at her, then the latter hummed. "She has a lover?"

Eugen yelped, though she was rapidly nodding her head. "Oh! A little jealous, aren't we?" Ataru then teased, which made the cruiser awk as his sister stared aghast at him at such a show of insensitivity. He then sighed. "Rinnie, you knew the chances were awfully good that Luise-san would find someone to share her futon with. She wasn't affected by the memories of the HaShoah as you were when your crew learned what happened after the surrender; she got sunk in 1941, remember?"

"J-j-ja, I know! I know!" she moaned as she snuggled anew against him. Though he was quite uncomfortable about this, he didn't resist; he could sense this situation was really bothering the cruiser badly. "And I'm happy for her! But still...!"

"Who was the one so honoured?" Hiromi asked.

"Actually, Markgräfin Moroboshi, it was one of my co-worker's many creations."

All three perked, then they turned...

"Wittmann-chūsa," Hiromi gasped, her eyes wide with awe.

Eugen's eyes went wide as the family name registered deep in her heart, then she gazed herself at the commanding officer of the First Battalion of the famous Schwarze Mädchen Brigade. A native of Ramsau thirty kilometres west of southwest from Vienna, Anna Wittmann had attended the Babenberg Akademie der Zauberei near Aggsbach on the north bank of the Danube, graduating with high honours the year before the Anschluss made Austria a part of the Third Reich. Her family had been long-time supporters of the Nazi movement in their homeland, which made her willingness to join forces with Gellert Grindelwald all the more understandable; even if the magicals of Austria had been slowly shifting away from a pureblood-dominated form of government, the scorn many felt towards "mudbloods" hurt far too many and needed to be addressed. Anna did repudiate her support for the murderers that had butchered so many once she learned the truth of the Holocaust, which she couldn't have literally "seen" thanks to the Eid unterstützendes Führerprinzip imposed on them at Heinrich Himmler's suggestion in 1938. Because of that, she had been "posthumously" awarded the Cross of Magical Valour in 1950 — as had all other Austrians in the Black Maidens — for her work in trying to keep the magical peace across Europe in the wake of VE Day. And now...

 _Lieber Gott! She's so BEAUTIFUL...!_ the cruiser gushed as she sensed her crew — who had, for the most part, been healthy young and single men when they had lived as mortal humans — just drool in delight at the sight of such a wholesome woman.

"One of your friend's...?" Hiromi began before her eyes widened. "Wait! Those golems created for Unternehmen Werwolf?!"

"Ja," Anna affirmed as she sat on a couch, her cheeks colouring slightly as she sensed Eugen's eyes dance all over her. She had dressed down from her normal uniform into civilian clothing, including form-fitting slacks that hugged her shapely legs closely. Noting that, Ataru tried not to smirk as he imagined this beautiful war witch in the revealing uniforms of a sports team cheerleader; she would be perfect for such a role. "Even if they are strong, they were built also to be intimate companions and need powerful magical bonds. One of them took interest in Fregattenkapitän von Bismarck when our friends in Hamburg learned of that Abyssal child now residing on Trischen, then caught her in a kiss to seal that bond and give her strength..."

" _ **LUISA WAS RAPED?!**_ "

That was a shuddering Eugen, whose battle aura was now flaring around her. "No, she was not, Fregattenkapitän von Savoyen! Stand down!" Anna snapped, making the cruiser yelp as she felt the aura of command the Austrian veteran of the Wars of Liberation wash over her to make her regain control over herself. "It was an act of desperation on Aimée's part. Because she had gone so long without someone to bond with so her magic could be controlled, she was desperate. That's the way my friend and her old teacher made them to be. It could have easily happened to anyone. Fregattenkapitän von Bismarck just had the ill-luck to be there when Aimée needed her. From what Linn told me, she's accepted it quite well."

Hearing that made Eugen blink before she sniffed. "Oh..."

"Please forgive my daughter's friend, Lady Anna," a ghostly voice then said from nearby. "Her feelings concerning her adopted homeland and her old fighting companion have always vexed her despite her determination to serve in Our Navy."

People looked over. "Onkel Joshua," Eugen breathed out.

Sitting nearby was the ghost of a smiling middle-aged man in an ornate dark blue uniform akin to Union Army battle dress of over a century before, a well-worn kepi hat on his head. Possessing balding curly black hair styled in a ring around the sides and backs of his head, he had a thick moustache and goatee. A beautiful sabre was tied to his left side. "Your Majesty, you honour us with your presence here," Hiromi said as everyone bowed to the spirit of the would-be emperor of the United States and protector of Mexico who was ALSO the spiritual adopted father to heavy cruiser San Francisco. "What brings you here? Given the distance from your capital city, it would have taken some effort to bring your spirit to this side of the Pacific."

Joshua Norton smirked. "Fret not, Lady Hiromi," he bade as the other people relaxed. "Even if he did not acknowledge Our Decree and remove himself from his assumed post as 'president', Mister Lincoln is a friend of Ours and his actions against the evil undead who preyed on so many has always held Our respect, especially when he made war on those monsters who would have dared rip Our United States apart to create their 'nation of vampires'. Not only that, Lady Naomi Haight-Ashbury is known to Us. She was happy to ask the Great Phoenixes to transport Us to this land when we sensed the terrible battle your brother just engaged in against those foul devils who dared twist the souls of far too many for their own personal amusement."

He then gazed upon Anna. "The reputation of your brigade is known to Us, Lady Anna. We have heard Our loyal subject, the Lady Regina Mitchell, is in country with your battalion at this time. How is she? Given the horrid way she was treated since she was kidnapped so young by the agents of Ilvermorny in adherence to that 'law' the pureblood maniacs in Our Magical Congress once passed because of that poor witch being tricked by that rhabdophobic hypocrite Barebone...!"

Anna chuckled. "Regina is well, Eure Majestät," she reported, bowing her head. "Given we are Avalonians, she is now subject to the bonding rituals of our adopted race and has become life-partners with my chief adjutant, Stabsfeldwebel Christine Schultz. They were married in secret with the help of Premierminister Trudeau once Minister Stewart was told of our surviving the Battle of the Gates and their soul-bond was confirmed by Minister Stewart's friends in the Kanadisches Ministerium."

Norton's eyes widened, then he smiled. "Ah! Young Justin! His father was always a wise man! It shows in his son so well! That's good! Now...!" He then perked before looking over. "Ah! There you are, child. I was worried about you."

San Francisco had just walked into the room. "What are you doing here, sir?"

"Trying to be your father, Michiko," Ataru noted.

That made the treaty cruiser blush...

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

"Cousin Blaise?"

Blaise Zabini perked before he looked at the second oldest of quintuplet sisters who had been born and raised in a magical village in the Herefordshire side of the Forest of Dean near the home town of one of his normal-born peers, Sally-Anne Perks. "What is it, Juno?" he asked as he walked over to grasp the free hand of Juno Meretrice, a distant cousin of his mother whose home town of Rhosan Green had been isolated for over a century until it had been rediscovered nearly a year before.

"I thought the American muggles always had an elected president as their head of state," the dark-skinned girl with the rusty red hair marking her part-Celtic ancestry asked as she peered intently at the ghost of Emperor Norton. "How...?"

An amused chuckle escaped Sally-Anne. A small group of Harry Potter's peers had been taking a tour of the building when Juno and her elder sister Libera sensed the powerful ghostly presence, then went to investigate. "He was never an emperor, Juno," the blonde, tomboyish forester's daughter from Ross-on-Wye explained, keeping her voice down even if she knew that both Ataru and Hiromi would sense their presence, never mind what the leader of the Black Maidens in the room could do. "He's actually from Britain and lived a time in South Africa; he migrated to America a decade before their big civil war started by the daywalker vampires. He's an eccentric, but people in San Francisco loved the man for his humanity and foresight."

"I wonder if he was magical," Hermione Granger mused.

"That was never proven in my lifetime, Lady Hermione."

The gathered students gasped on hearing that voice, then they noted that the deceased "emperor" was gazing in amusement at them. "Come over, little ones," Norton then bade, waving them to approach. "I am known to the good ghosts who protect your ancient school. I have heard many a wonderful tale about what has happened in the recent school year, especially concerning young Lord Harry and his battle against the monster who slew his parents when he was but a child."

The students all came over. While traditional British wizarding culture tended to always view the presence of ghosts as something to be cautiously wary of — as was so in Japan — the support the many spirits who haunted Hogwarts had given the current freshman class had endeared them all, even the mostly-silent Grey Lady, to the fifty-one first year students who had started classes the previous fall. "Forgive us, Your Majesty. We meant not to eavesdrop," Justin Finch-Fletchley said as he and the other muggleborns bowed or gave a curtsy to the spirit of the long-dead former rice trader. "Some of our wonderful friends had sensed a strange disturbance and we wished to investigate. Given what just happened earlier..."

Norton nodded in approval. "It's good that you are on guard, young man."

"Your Majesty?! What are you doing here?"

He turned, then smiled as a certain member of the Big Seven came into the room, accompanied by her aircraft carrier girlfriend and their adopted son and daughter. "Ah! Lady Reiko! Lady Dionne! Young Harry!" Norton called out — the "emperor" of the United States got the chance to meet Nagato, Saratoga and their adopted child during a summer leave the year before Harry got his invite to Hogwarts, which they had spent on the other side of the Pacific — before he smiled as a grinning Hoppō ran over to literally leap into his lap so she could snuggle close to him; given the spiritual nature of the child princess born from the spirits of the lost children of Unalaska, she was able to be "caught" by the ghost and held effectively by his arms. "My! You're getting bigger every time I've seen pictures of you, young lady! I dare say your mother will have to run out her whole broadside to protect you from potential suitors!" As Nagato gargled, Norton gazed at her. "Be wary, my dear!"

The flagship of the Combined Fleet at Pearl Harbour considered that, then she sighed. "Hai, Heika, I will be on guard for that! The idea that there might be _**betting pools**_ at Hogwarts now concerning who might desire to date my son...!"

" _ **LEWD!**_ " Harry croaked.

"You protest too much, Lord Harold!"

That was Libera Meretrice, who was giving him an amused look. A member of Hufflepuff and Sally-Anne's best friend despite the latter's "new" blood, the crimson-haired, dark-skinned beauty was mature for someone her age. As Harry then sputtered at the idea of doing lewd things with any of his friends, the current matriarch of the Most Noble House of Meretrice of Wye — her parents were both squibs, thus couldn't hold the family seat in the Wizengamot — added, "I have seen the reaction of many of the noble sea spirits you have befriended when they have come to Hogwarts to look in upon you, especially in this latest incident when that foul 'dark lord' was permanently dealt with by the Earth Angel and that horrid taint in that rune-scar of yours was purged." On mentioning that, people automatically gazed on Harry's forehead, where there now was just a faint mark where a long-wounded scar had been for many years. "I noticed this especially when it came to the Lady Himeko of the Great House of Fubuki. Her concern for you was profound, far beyond that one might expect of a battle-sister of your mother."

Harry was now as red as a cherry. "Himeko-nēchan...?!"

"'Tis true, Lord Harold," Erebus Genian, another Rhosan Green native who had been sorted into Slytherin and who was a social neutral despite his traditional upbringing, said with a sympathetic smile, holding up a warning finger. "Methinks when the time comes after she endures her first blood, Lady Himeko will be adamant in seeking to become the next Lady Potter of Taunton Deane! If the sheer levels of magic I've sensed of any of the noble sea nymphs who gladly protect us all from Lady Hoppō's mad kinswomen are any indication, she will be quite the wife for you once you are properly wed!" As Harry gargled on hearing that, Erebus exchanged a knowing look with his best friend, Ophion Rhodes. "Indeed, it will be quite the marriage."

"There are potential rivals, though."

Harry squawked. "Sensei...!"

People turned as Moroboshi Negako came into the room. "How so, Great Lady?" Libera asked. "Given how much Lord Harold has suffered because of that false 'dark lord' — to say anything of those greedy and useless muggles Lord Albus was forced to relocate him to for his own safety after his good parents were killed by that monster — we only but wish the best for him in the future." As Harry then blushed on hearing his fellow clan head declare that, the eldest of the Meretrice quints added, "Which includes seeing him obtain a proper wife so that his family line can finally recover from the hideous deprivations forced on his clan over the last century and more. Never mind the influence of many leaders of these so-called 'twenty-eight families' that were declared 'most pure' by Lord Theodore's mad kinsman many years ago in that worthless book of his." Here, she gave Theodore Nott an apologetic look, earning her a nod of acknowledgement and a friendly smile in return from him.

"Especially given the current state of affairs and how much people are afraid of the Statute being finally done away with," Ernie MacMillan said as he crossed his arms. "I mean, much that I don't have issues with muggles..."

"You are afraid that too many misunderstandings will occur and people will be hurt in the long term," Negako finished, making the current heir to the Noble House of MacMillan of Rosyth nod in agreement. "A wise attitude to possess, Ernest." She then indicated Libera. "Look upon the example of your peers from Rhosan Green that Cass freed before they would have lost their own magic and become nimmibs as their parents and ancestors became thanks to the house elves who felt they had no choice but to continue to obey Jupiter Meretrice's final command to their parents during the Chaucer Rebellion to keep all safe. Despite their worldview, they are striving to accept how both the normal and the magical sides of Britain had evolved in the twelve decades and more their families were imprisoned in Rhosan Green. Do you see them despair at what they now have to confront? All of you raised in pure-magical environments will face a similar situation when Her Majesty withdraws her support for the Separation Act and demands its repeal. Yes, you know through the normal-born among your peers that the vast majority of normal Britons are worried about you all and wish the best for you all. Fear is a natural reaction to such a profound change as what you will soon experience. Do not let it dominate your thoughts. Understand it, learn your options, create a strategy for you to endure such a transition, then make a life for yourself and your families. You will do well."

"Oh, well said, Lady Negako!" Norton declared as he clapped his hands.

Hearing that strong encouragement in her words, all the magically-raised seemed to puff with determination at that show of support from the spiritual daughter of the Immortal Master Hosan Hirosuke, a being who had always been respected by British magicals thanks to his background support to the founders of Hogwarts even if he then lived on the other side of Eurasia from where one of the oldest still-existing schools of magic had been established in the Scottish highlands...

* * *

 _ **The Solomon Sea fifteen kilometres west of Boku on Bougainville, that moment (local time: An hour before midnight)...**_

"Hey! Look off to port, guys!"

Hearing that from Kako, the others of the Sixth Cruiser Division all perked before they looked off to the west, with Aoba raising her specially-built night vision camera — a personal gift from South Dakota when the first of her class of fast battleships had visited Yokosuka after the "big reveal" concerning the true identity of Enterprise three years ago when Hoppō had been rescued from Unalaska — to take a look herself. After a moment, the shipgirl news reporter hissed out, " _ **Ryūseizen...!**_ "

Kako, Furutaka and Kinugasa all gasped on hearing that term from their squadron flagship, then they focused their own optics on the looming mass about twenty nautical miles away, it exposed by the fading twilight of sunset two hours before. Seeing that mass with its well-shaped hull, compact superstructure pierced in the middle by a large funnel capped with a raked top to divert smoke from the lattice foremast laden with radar and other forms of sensory and the four turrets in standard super-firing pairs fore and aft, the four heavy cruisers could only feel their own hearts stir with both awe and delight as the memories of members of their crews being rescued by those ships when they had been sunk during the Greater East Asia War surged through their minds. On their rigging, faeries who had been preparing their guns for night battle — the cruisers of the Sixth Division had been ordered to sweep through Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville's west coast to clear out a potential Abyssal installation set up near Cape Torokina — instantly straightened themselves as they saluted the distant warship.

Kinugasa then perked as several of her faerie gun crews began to excitedly chatter. The other cruisers all perked as their own crews quickly got encoded radio transmissions from the second of her class, which made them focus once more on the battleship on the horizon. Sure enough, the pearl grey pendant **19** was painted on her hull under the main navigation bridge. Seeing that, the cruiser known to friends as Fujimoto Kinue blinked before her sea green eyes teared in joy. Aoba was quick to see that, then she focused anew at the distant vessel through her camera before she blinked. "A kiwi...?"

Furutaka and Kako both perked. "What kiwi, Ayako?" the former asked.

"There's a kiwi on her funnel."

" **Te Pakanga o Aotearoa** _ **Te Ika**_."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"She's from _**New Zealand**_?!" Kako exclaimed.

Kinugasa nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. "Hai, Kahori. The eighth of the Victoria-class; they're takeoffs of the Argo-class from Canada. Argo-sama was the one that was there for Mary Hood and Luisa von Bismarck in 1941. Her sistership Chennalton-sama was there for Anna, Kei, Sei and Hiyoko at Midway, not to mention Anne after Leyte Gulf and Yasuko-san and the others off Okinawa during Ten-gō." As the others scowled on hearing the name of that useless suicide mission, the adopted native of Yokosuka and Kōbe sniffed back tears. "Te Ika is named after New Zealand's North Island. The magicals of the Realm and the Commonwealth felt it wasn't fair that the magicals of the Dominion were the only ones building battleships to fight the sea kaijū. They formed a unified battle squadron along with two battlecruisers from World War One they managed to hide from the normals when the Washington Treaty demanded they be scrapped or sunk." She smirked. "The original Australia and New Zealand. Or 'Aotearoa' as she was renamed when she was re-commissioned after her rebuild."

Kako howled in delight on hearing that. Her name had been chosen for the fourth of the Sendai-class cruisers until that treaty had been signed, which enforced huge building restrictions on the major seafaring nations. And while the intentions had been for the good, knowing that Australia and New Zealand — the cruisers also known as Hiraga Kahori had often visited the fabled homeland of the Māori since her return to duty, so she knew what the word "Aotearoa" actually represented — survived that mass culling of warships made her heart glow. She then perked as the faeries representing the crew who had been "lost" off Savo Island in the late summer of 1942 whispered something to her. She then chuckled. "Sundown!" she called out.

Furutaka and Aoba perked before the former's crew whispered things into her mind. "Hey! Me, too!" she affirmed, earning her a laugh from her sistership before she gazed at the lead of her class of cruisers. "What about you, Ayako-chan?"

Aoba shook her head. "I was sunk in harbour, Fujiko-chan! I doubt any of the Ryūseizen would have been able to sneak all the way into Kōbe to rescue my crew if they died after the Seventh Air Force came to visit that day!"

"Did the kaijū ever get into the harbours?" Kako wondered.

"Doubt it," the shipgirl reporter breathed out. "Seeing they were as big as Gojira's been portrayed in recent films, if one of them ever appeared in Tōkyō Bay, the Statute of Secrecy would have been done away with back then!"

"The War Hawks would have had to deal with it, I'll bet," Furutaka muttered.

"That's a sucker's bet, Fujiko!" Kako groused.

Wry chuckles escaped the others...

* * *

 _ **On the shoreline of Bougainville at Motupena Point, that moment...**_

The spiky raven-haired man appearing to be in his mid-twenties scowled on seeing the four slender female shapes on the high seas some distance away; unlike most normal people, the swordsman who once apprenticed under the Immortal Master could perceive things at a greater distance with incredible clarity. Not to the level of the alien-born "superhero" that had appeared in American manga since around the time the man born Hisamura Natsuki allied himself with the Black Dragon Society's special operations wing to defend the Home Islands against the mostly-civilian metahumans of the American Liberty Legion and their Canadian counterparts, the Soldiers of Freedom, but it was enough. Remembering then the young and foolish nationalists who gladly allowed their minds to be overwhelmed by ebony mesonium injected into their bloodstream, the native of Yokohama shook his head, thanking all the Kami that he had been able to become as much a master of the Atom of True Life as his old friend and training partner Yomigawa Tsukiko became thanks to long years of intensive personal study at Watari-shima.

Shaking his head as he wondered why on Earth the great Kami allowed the spirits of the warships which had been built to serve Shōwa Tennō and his revered father and grandfather to return as teenage WOMEN to fight the good fight against the sea demons, the man known commonly as _**Kyōshinsu**_ to fans and detractors alike sighed before he moved to head towards the beach so he could walk around the perimeter of Empress Augusta Bay and approach the Abyssal base at the old Torokina airfield from the southeast. Grasping his beautiful hand-forged meson-augmented katana in its lacquered sheath, Natsuki could only smirk in anticipation as he wondered how the enemy would react when a MAN came along to dismember them.

As a metahuman, he was gifted with what on planet Yiziba was called the standard FISS package. If he was ever transported to that particular universe, he could effectively duel the likes of Superman and Captain Marvel even if he didn't have the enhanced senses of the Last Son of Krypton, much less the mystical clairvoyance of the World's Mightiest Mortal. Briefly wondering if the Abyssal plague had appeared in other dimensions, the swordsman smirked as his thumb gently pushed his weapon slightly out of its scabbard. Ever since he came out of his self-imposed retirement after the commencement of the general war five years before, Natsuki had personally scoured over the vast territory which had once been conquered by Imperial forces during the Greater East Asia War, eliminating shore installations and ambushing the stray fleet of ships before they could get out to open sea and do mischief. Unlike the other survivors of the metahuman side of World War Two, the former leader of the Dai-ichi Shinrai-chūtai understood his duty to the Heavenly Sovereign and to humanity as a whole.

The beasts who had killed millions worldwide had to be stopped.

They would be stopped.

No matter what.

Of course, Natsuki didn't care to bring harm on innocents even if they too were born of the deep. Young Hoppō, for example, would never have to fear from the swordsman; her behaviour towards the helpless civilians of the Aleutian Islands before she was betrayed by three other princesses years before had been exemplary. He also had nothing against young Vrángelja, who had first risen somewhere on the northern shore of Siberia before retreating to her namesake island to be later found by the crew of the aircraft carrier _Yonaga_ and the living kami of the Canadian battleship _Chennalton_ a year before; she had done nothing towards any of the villages which had been in range of the New Land Princess until the living kami of the Seventh Carrier of Operation Z personally dealt with her shortly after her own transformation into a kanmusu. As for any others...!

"Ah! It's you again, Major."

Natsuki paused before he turned...

...then he sighed. "Sergeant," he greeted in accented English.

The smiling middle-aged wizard in the magically-enhanced jungle camouflage battle dress of the Australian Army nodded; no salutes were exchanged. Donald Hitchin was a part-Torres Strait Islander native of Bamanga on the Cape York Peninsula in the far north of Queensland. He was a member of "C" Company in the Seventh Battalion of the Commonwealth Rangers, Australia's equivalent to the Royal Regiment of Canadian Foresters. A veteran of the Wars of Liberation, Hitchin served as a magical coastwatcher on guard against intrusion by elements of the Greater East Asia Liberation Army in the early part of that war; he would later join his home battalion in sweeping clear the remnants of the Dutch loyalty stone field from West Papua and the eastern islands of the Indonesian archipelago after VJ Day. These days, Hitchin served as an observer on Bougainville, protecting the scattered remnants of the island's human population now located far inland from the reach of the Abyssals and monitoring enemy formation movements along the western coast of the island; he had been one of many that the Japanese kanmusu relied on in their sweep of Ironbottom Sound three years ago which later caused a stir among magicals thanks to the revelations concerning destroyer Kisaragi. Like many Australian magicals Natsuki met over the years, Hitchin was descent of an old English wizarding line whose ancestors had intermarried with native magicals on moving to the Land Down Under over the last two centuries, producing people who possessed a more accepting worldview than what relatives in Britain would see as "proper", especially when it came to dealing with normal humans, other humanoid sentients...and metahumans.

"So what brings you back here? More hunting?" Hitchin asked as he pulled out a pipe and lit it up with a small flare of magic.

"Of course," the swordsman stated with a smirk as he gazed around, allowing his mind to be bombarded by the massive input of sensory data produced by all around him. Quickly sensing several minor demons classified as "cruisers" by all the experts on the nearby beach, he took a deep breath as he relaxed himself to achieve zanshin before he would charge forward. "Any particular demon which might be of interest to me before I return them back to the hell that spawned them?"

"Two carriers and five cruisers in the main camp," the Australian wizard stated. "All shipgirl spirits corrupted by the dark energy that powers these things and makes them lash out at humans; that's what divination experts in the battalion suspect might have happened to them when they formed here three years ago to cause trouble. The cruisers were the four lost at the battle off Savo in 1942 before the Yanks came to take Guadalcanal, plus the one that went down off Rennell Island the following January. One carrier might be the big Yank ship that went down in the Coral Sea before Midway; her sister is the one Lady Nagato is dating who is helping raise young Marquess Potter and young Miss Hoppō. The last was a lass from your country that was involved in the first sweep here four years ago, just before those girls' friends went out to deal with that princess who set up shop at Midway." He nodded out to sea as he focused his attention on Aoba and her friends.

Natsuki scowled. " _ **Shōhō...**_ "

"Aye."

A grim nod then twitched the physically younger man's head. "You have my thanks, Sergeant."

With that, the swordsman became a blur as he raced off towards Torokina. Hitchin watched him take off, then he smirked as he sat back to watch the fun using his own mage-sight so he could get pensieve memories of it.

This would be a big hit back home...

...not to mention send out a signal to the stalebloods in Europe and America.

One they all desperately needed, of course...

* * *

 _ **Off the coast, minutes later...**_

"Explosions!"

Hearing Kinugasa's shocked cry, Aoba spun away from filming Te Ika to gaze upon her sister...

...then, on seeing where she was looking, the shipgirl reporter turned to look at the dark shoreline of Bougainville.

A shoreline that now was lit up with glowing bond fires.

"Gods!" Aoba gasped as she raised her camera to get a closer look.

"Did Te Ika fire her guns?!" Kako demanded.

"I didn't hear any guns fire!" Furutaka protested.

"What about missiles?!" Kinugasa wondered.

"We would have heard them!"

Aoba tried not to sigh while the others chatted away excitedly. Much that it was crummy discipline while in a potential battle zone, what was now tearing apart the Torokina base was creating enough noise that if there was some submarine in the area, any sound her sister or friends made wouldn't be heard over the echo of sound rolling past them from shore. As she focused her eye through her camera lens to get a closer look while faeries climbed onto her shoulders and rigging to observe what was happening themselves, the lead of her class could only shake her head, trying to figure out what the hell was causing this. She knew there were magical coastwatchers all over the Solomons — all of them Australian magical soldiers in the Commonwealth Rangers called to duty for behind-the-lines observation missions deep in enemy territory in support of the war effort — who also helped protect the surviving population of the islands from being slaughtered, but this was just too much for them...

Wait...

Who the HELL...?!

The cruiser's face then paled as a familiar spiky-haired figure then emerged from a wall of flame, his sword drawn and ready.

" _ **Kyōshinsu...!**_ " she croaked out.

That name made the others in her division gape in awed shock at her before they turned to look themselves at the battle while Aoba mentally linked into satellite communications to send a flash message back to Yokosuka.

Ōyodo had to hear of this YESTERDAY!

* * *

 _ **Torokina...**_

" _ **YOU BLOODY JAP MONSTER! GO AWAY...!**_ "

Hearing that screeching noise from one princess-class heavy cruiser with four twin eight-inch gun turrets, Natsuki shook his head. "Your Queen WEEPS at the thought of your corruption, Lady Canberra," he said in English as he assumed a relaxed guard stance some distance away. "What made you refuse to answer the call to arms at Crib Point?! What sort of prize were you offered by whatever kami made you come back as _**this**_?!" The disapproving scowl on his face was apparent to all.

" _ **DIE!**_ "

A whole squadron of destroyers leapt out of nearby trees to try to dog-pile the former leader of Japan's premier metahuman combat team. With an amused smirk, Natsuki swatted them away with his free hand, the impact echoed with the crunching noise of broken bones and the shrieking of torn steel. The princess before him which personified the darker side of the seventh of the County-class cruisers snarled before she let him have it with a full broadside from her BL 8 inch Mark VIII cannons. The eight 116 kilogram shells slammed into him, staggering him, which was enough for Canberra's four best friends to level their nine 8 inch 55 calibre Mark 9 cannons (for Astoria and Chicago) or Mark 12 cannons (for Quincy and Vincennes) on him and force him away from the ammunition dump that he had been approaching; if THAT went up, everyone would be killed. While other destroyers scrambled closer to the larger Abyssals and add their firepower to the onslaught against this human-shaped monster now moving to destroy their base, the thunder of aircraft flying high in the sky made Natsuki look up for a second, seeing two carriers' worth of aircraft — a mixture of Nakajima B5N2 torpedo bombers converted for level attack and Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers — come at him, their bombs already falling. Smirking, Natsuki tossed his sword into the air, the glittering blade flashing in the evening sky...before his hands came together in a thunderous clap!

The sonic boom that exploded from that sent a wave of compressed air flying up to detonate the bombs long before they got close to him, then knock the attacking aircraft right out of the sky. As the Abyssals looked up to see what happened, the sword fell back into Natsuki's hand, then he charged towards Chicago. The corrupted Northampton-class heavy cruiser squawked as she backpedalled from the oncoming native of Yokosuka, her cannons blasting away as the destroyers close to her fired their own weapons to drive him back. He seemed to ignore them as he grasped her by the neck, then flung her back-first against a nearby tree. As it was shattered from the metaphysical impact of over nine thousand tonnes of treaty cruiser slamming into it, Natsuki shook his head. "To believe they dedicated their victory to your very memory, Miss Chicago," the swordsman said as he assumed a ready stance, ignoring the impact of shells from four other cruisers against his back.

Chicago glared at him. " _ **What the hell does THAT mean?!**_ "

"Last year's World Series," the swordsman stated, ignoring the shells slamming into him; once he had achieved his state of total awareness and allowed his mind to focus his invulnerability into creating an unbreakable field of energy around him which looked at the impact of shells the same metaphysical mass as he like droplets of rain in a springtime shower, he could focus on the corrupted spirit of the fourth Northampton-class cruiser. "Your namesake was there...!"

" _ **DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT**_ **HER** _ **, JAP!**_ " Chicago then shrilled.

"...and they won the Series. In YOUR name!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **Who won...?!**_ " a wide-eyed Chicago demanded, her voice no longer echoing.

"The Cubs."

Even more silence.

Then...

" _ **My Cubs...?!**_ " the cruiser gasped, her crimson eyes flashing before they seemed to fade in strength, becoming sea blue.

"Game Seven, it went into overtime against the Indians," Natsuki stated as he lowered his katana, ignoring the mad fusillade coming at him from the other cruisers that had been Chicago's fleet mates in their first life...

...then he grunted as a shrieking Canberra leapt onto his shoulders, hoping to scratch his eyes out with her claws as she tried to force her weight down on him. The native of Yokosuka shot into the air, causing the corrupted County-class cruiser to scream in mortal terror as she was boosted into the evening sky. While the other Abyssals save Chicago howled in outrage on seeing such a show of power, Natsuki came to a hover about a kilometre above the rolling waters of Empress Augusta Bay. He then tilted forward, causing Canberra to cry out as she was nearly pitched off his body, though she was snared by the neck thanks to his free hand. Before she could try to struggle free, he wound up and let go with a pitch at supersonic speeds.

The cruiser slammed into the ammunition dump a second later...!

* * *

 _ **Offshore...**_

"Oh, shit...! _**DUCK!**_ "

Hearing Aoba's shrieked warning, the other cruisers crouched low on the waters.

It was just in time.

* * *

 _ **Torokina...**_

The explosion of TONNES of ammunition instantly turned night into day as a fireball almost compatible to what had consumed Hiroshima one summer day in 1945 seemed to devour over a kilometre of beachfront and the surrounding forest. Abyssals shrieked as they were literally burned and blasted apart by the concussive force. Natsuki was buffeted hard by the wave of searing energy that consumed everything else in its path, though save for loose fragments of his martial artist's gi and hakama, he wasn't hurt. As the concussive wave surged past him while the fireball began to disperse, he took a deep breath, ignoring the smoke and charred fragments of the sea demons now drifting in the air around the scene. After a minute as he watched everything that had been built up over three years surrender to cleansing flame, the swordsman sighed as he allowed himself to drift to the east, coming down on the beach some distance from where Chicago had been standing. He was joined a minute later by a grim-looking Australian magical infantryman-turned-coastwatcher. "Nicely done," Donald Hitchin mused.

Natsuki blinked before he sighed, sheathing his sword. As the Australian pulled out his wand to repair the swordsman's robes, a _POP!_ made both turn as a smiling house elf appeared, tea service in hand. "Mistress wishes both of you to have some good tea to relaxes and now allows the dark magic to hurt yous, Masters," the elf said in the normal pidgin voice used by his kind.

Natsuki was quick to see the tally **HMNZS TE IKA** on the elf's sailor cap. Nodding his thanks, he assumed seiza on the sand, then smiled as the elf prepared a cup, his Australian friend moving to sit cross-legged beside him.

Both ignored the surge of flames from nearby, much less the piteous moans of dying Abyssals...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, the Toranoseishin Tower, an hour later...**_

"Damn! Damn! Damn! DAMN!"

Hearing that litany of curses from his adopted mother, Harry Potter could only shake his head. They were relaxing with Nagato's lover and Hoppō in one of the guest bedrooms close to where Moroboshi Hiromi normally resided. Several of Harry's classmates were also there. "Okā-chan! What's wrong with Hisamura-shōsa coming back to duty?! He just took out a major base that was threatening the lines of communication between Hawai'i and Australia! What's wrong?!"

"Indeed, Lady Reiko, I fail to see what the issue actually is!" Libera Meretrice added, her comment echoed with nods from all the other children from Rhosan Green who were freed by Long Beach a year before. "We have a loyal servant of His Imperial Majesty — a man you yourself are also sworn to serve! — going forth to eliminate the enemies of the state! And doing so quite spectacularly, saving four of your own battle-sisters along the way! What is the issue here?!"

"It's called 'escalation', Libera."

That was Saratoga. "Commander Doolittle is correct, Miss Meretrice," Severus Snape added, a slight grimace on his face. The potions master had been asked to provide his own input into this situation when the freshmen students began asking questions. Albus Dumbledore had apparated to Tenmon-jinja in Nagasaki to meet with Yomigawa Tsukiko concerning this situation before news of this got to the headquarters of the International Confederation of Wizards in Geneva. "Yes, Mister Potter is correct. The major's actions this evening were admirable. However, there is a great fear of non-magical metahumans on both sides of the magical security divide. Regardless of the major's mastery of the mesonium in his blood, if it became common knowledge that the leader of one of the companies of warriors which were supported by the Black Dragon Society during the Second World War was once more active and moving to put down the enemy, it could cause a worldwide panic. For all the wrong reasons, of course...but people can be quite foolish if they lack the right sort of information concerning this issue. The memories of the metahuman side of the Wars of Liberation are quite strong, at least on the magical side of things."

"The professor's right, Harry," Hermione Granger added, which made Harry stare at her. "On the normal side, it's pretty much the same thing. Sure, the War Hawks are admired all the time, but they're all commissioned officers in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Other groups that fought in that war were effectively civilians forced to be soldiers. They didn't have the self-discipline to control themselves. That's what people are scared of and that's why the Specialized Warfare Acts were passed in Canada and elsewhere. If the major has no official sanction from any element of the Japanese government, he'd be considered a rogue agent. Given how powerful that man is..." She shook her head.

"He has sanction, young Hermione."

Hearing that cold voice, people turned as the seventh carrier of Operation Z came into the room. "You just confirmed something, Yoiko-san?" Nagato asked as Yonaga moved to sit down close to the students, a cup of tea in hand.

"Negako-sama confirmed this, Reiko-san. You know she speaks for Tennō in situations such as this," Yonaga reported. "After the incident in Tōkyō Bay when Anne-san and her sisters returned to duty with young Negi's assistance to fight off the yōma, Hisamura-shōsa and the other veterans of the Shinrai-chūtai who were never affected by the misery the Kokuryū-kai unleashed on so many brave young men and women all reported to Tennō and offered to return to duty as independent field agents to strike at the enemy while the Self-Defence Forces..." — she tried not to scowl on speaking that term — "...were summoning kanmusu back to duty." As the battleship nodded — she herself had come back to duty right after the Battle of Tōkyō Bay alongside her sister and other old veterans of the Combined Fleet to press on the war — the carrier added, "You ever wonder why the mass attacks on civilian targets in Japan dropped to a bare minimum after Blood Week?"

Nagato blinked. "Why weren't we told?"

"You had to adjust first to being human, Reiko."

People turned as the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū entered the room. "At least, it should have been coordinated, Negako-san," Nagato stated. "Much that I appreciate how much the major's work has made lives easier, we need to know these things. The Eight Commanderies always work with us to defend the nation. Why couldn't they do the same thing? We could have avoided a lot of injuries — to say anything of the loss of Kisaragi and Shōhō — if they directly helped."

"Agreed," Moroboshi Negako stated, a wry smile crossing her face. "Unfortunately, Natsuki is of the same generation as Fujita Hiroshi." Here, she glanced knowingly at Yonaga. "He finds it quite distasteful that the kami of warships returned as _**women**_ to fight the enemy. He felt it very wrong to disturb your eternal rest by forcing you to become something you were never constructed to be in the first place, never mind the potential interpersonal issues." As Nagato grimly nodded at that, Negako smirked. "Since the other survivors of the Shinrai-chūtai normally defer to Natsuki when it comes to seeking opinions on major issues, the others followed his lead and moved to work alone or in pairs to deal with the enemy as they saw..."

A flash of phoenix fire then made people's heads snap over...

"My apologies for intruding, Negako-sama."

Negako looked over. "Natsuki." Her eyebrow then arched. "You recovered Shōko."

"She was the only one who endured the explosion," Hisamura Natsuki stated as he gazed upon the burnt and shuddering light carrier now in his arms, her clothes visibly morphing to the mixture of kimono top and black skirt that she wore as a normal shipgirl. "Commander Doolittle, I am pleased to announce that five of your own fleet mates will now be free to return to duty. Your elder sister being one. I suggest that General O'Neill be contacted immediately about that."

Saratoga blinked before her jaw dropped in shock. "Rebecca...?!"

"Hai," the native of Yokosuka said with a nod. "There are healing baths here?"

"This way," Negako bade.

Natsuki followed her out of the room, carrying the dozing Shōhō. Harry watched them go, a worried look on his face. His classmates were quick to notice. "Did you know her?" Susan Bones asked as Hermione squeezed his shoulder in support.

"I met her briefly before Operation MO was launched," Harry admitted. "She was always nice to me. It really hurt Sumiko-obachan — that's Zuihō — when she was sunk." He sighed. "Who cares about escalation when you have to worry about that, Professor?" he then wondered as he gazed at Severus. "People get saved no matter what. Isn't that more important?"

"Some people just wouldn't care, Mister Potter," the older man warned...

* * *

 _ **Mahora (north of Tōkyō), the offices of the headmaster of the Mahora Academy, that moment...**_

"I am so sorry to land this on your head, Albus."

"Oh, don't apologize, Konoemon," Dumbledore breathed out. "I rather suspected that Major Hisamura and his friends from the Thunder Companies were recalled by His Imperial Majesty to duty to give your people time to expand on what Negi started with Anne and her sisters. Personally, it was brilliantly done. And given how much good work they clearly did if the drop of incidents concerning attacks on helpless civilians after Blood Week in Japan indicates, it was the right decision to make."

"Of course, your current chief of staff will disagree."

That was an amused Yomigawa Tsukiko, who took a moment to sip the beautiful apricot tea that her host's granddaughter Konoe Konoka had prepared for her. Also present at this meeting in Konoe Konoemon's office with Dumbledore were veterans of the Ala Alba and the Terran-born members of the Ala Rubra, including Negi Springfield's father Nagi. Also there were Evangeline McDowell and the ambassador of the American Department of Magic to the Eight Commanderies, Percival Graves. Much to Dumbledore's delight, the former director of magical security for the Magical Congress during the 1920s and one of many who had been victimized by Gellert Grindelwald during the "phony magical war" phase of his move to bring down the Statute of Secrecy hadn't blinked when so many "no-majs" came to this meeting. Then again, Graves was an admirer of the work of the elder Springfield on Earth and on Nerio; when he had been ambassador to the ICW, he successfully pushed for independent schools such as Meridiana to be granted observer status with the organization, much to the outrage of pureblood elites in the British Ministry of Magic. "Couldn't you do something about this, Albus?" the Irish-born native of Los Angeles asked. "If Babajide is moving to scuttle all the work the shipgirls have done — in defiance of orders from people like President Bartlet and His Imperial Majesty — isn't that grounds for dismissal?! I'm sure President Museveni would be glad to help!"

"Try as I might, Babajide has too many admirers among the representatives, Percival," Dumbledore noted. "Yes, he knows he can't step too far out of line when it concerns President Museveni — especially given that His Excellency was the leader of the rebels who helped topple not only Babajide's late sponsor, but his own successor — but the man also has much in the way of influence on the Ugandan Wizengamot. He knows how to control the information flow to the President."

"Since Uganda is an inland nation, there's no concerns about the Abyssals," Negi mused before sipping his tea. "Yes, there was that one instance concerning the namesake cruiser to that country when she returned to duty at Cornwallis as NCSM _Québec_ to serve in the Royal Canadian Navy, but that's it. Uganda has no role to play in this war save as an exporter of food, which normally is shipped through Kenya to get to worldwide markets. Given the relations between both nations, I doubt Professor Akingbade will wish to do anything that could see President Museveni pay closer attention to the affairs of the Ministry of Magic. No one who wants to keep the Statute protections in place would want to do that in the long term."

"Indeed," Dumbledore breathed out.

"There are other ways of dealing with this."

Eyes locked on Konoka's father Eishun, the current leader of the Kansai Magical Association and one of Nagi Springfield's friends. "An assassination, you mean?" Yomigawa asked, earning her rueful chuckles from many of the others in the room.

"We know who's in Strasbourg now, Gensui-sama," Eishun reminded her.

"Who?" Evangeline wondered.

"Elizabeth Gibbon's command staff...and Jessica Dover," Dumbledore supplied.

That made the others gape as the immortal daywalker turned almost as white as a sheet. "I take it, Master, you had an encounter with Squadron Leader Dover?" Negi asked as he gave his old teacher an amused look.

The native of Wigtown in the former Kingdom of Scotland during the Hundred Years War sputtered at being called out like that. "Oh! Did poor Eva-chan get scared of the big, bad, soul-eating phoenix?!" Kagurazaka Asuna then teased.

" _ **THAT'S NOT FUNNY, BRAT!**_ " Evangeline shrieked.

Laughter filled the room, especially from Nagi and his friends...

* * *

 _ **On Vicki Keith Point near the Tommy Thompson Lighthouse at the end of the Leslie Street Spit in Toronto, that moment (local time: An hour after breakfast)...**_

"Wow...! You were smart to bring me into this, Ojii-san."

Hearing that comment from the Mistress of Time and Space, the _**Weaver**_ , the middle-aged man with the thinning black hair, moustache and goatee smirked, his ageless grey eyes flashing with amusement. Even now, he was amazed at how blind people could be at times. Given the sheer furor of what was happening worldwide, it hadn't dawned on people to seek the simple solution of contacting adopted members of the one race of true metahumans in the known Universe for assistance. Regardless of the reputation the Yizibajohei possessed among the "sames" and "norms" who had come into contact with the natives of the Seeker's Forge in the wake of the Dawn of Power over two millennia ago, most natives of that world would NEVER dream of standing aside and allow defenceless people without any form of metahuman power to be slaughtered like cattle as the Abyssals had done over the last decade. The recycled memories of that dark period of time on Yiziba, which came part and parcel with the whole Gifting process that turned normal-born people into virtual gods depending on the nature of the "gift" bestowed to one by the Great Crystal of Power, still haunted much of the current generation of Yizibajohei.

Even the many Terran-borns among them these days.

Such as Suzumiya Haruhi.

"So they forced themselves into a null-time bubble to prevent the last of your henchmen from detonating a mesonium version of an A-bomb to destroy Toronto," the native of Nishinomiya to the east of Kōbe concluded. "Sore losers..."

"Indeed, they were. I tried to stop them, but once they were 'gifted' with ebony mesonium, they were able to completely escape whatever controls I placed on them," Josef von Taserich stated, an amused smile on his face. "After the slaughter of so many of their friends thanks to Dean and her small troupe, their thirst for revenge grew to the point where there was no stopping them. It was a miracle that William Costilow was able to use his abilities to warp them out of there. Sadly, the others in the League and the Soldiers believed that for William's spell to work, they had to contribute their own life energies to it. All that was needed was a portion of power from Dean. No one had to have 'died'." He shook his head at the sheer waste of the Battle of Toronto — the last true engagement between the Allies and the remnants of the Axis in World War Two, which went down a week after the surrender on USS _Missouri_ in Tōkyō Bay — especially when it came to the new generation of native-born metahumans whose rise had been guaranteed thanks to the many battles across three continents between Allied and Axis warriors such as his own spiritual "granddaughter" Dean Raeburn. "Well, it is time to change that."

"You sure that cranky old witch in Superior won't get involved?" Haruhi asked.

Taserich smirked. "She likes many of them, Haruhi. Especially those who had aboriginal blood in them such as Martin's paramour Valerie Sanipass. At least they knew how to be properly respectful to my friends from long ago."

Hearing that, the second-most powerful reality warper on all of Yiziba smirked on hearing the phrase "friends from long ago" by the former Prussian cavalry commander. While some on Yiziba would decry the man born Tash Ri on Rügen twenty-five millennia ago as a "death cheater" because the ebony mesonium in his blood rendered him effectively immortal, Haruhi didn't care for that sort of useless attitude. On Yiziba, it was called the "luck of the fight scene". Fate was something not even a person such as she could control. Sometimes, someone emerged from a fight scene smelling like roses. Sometimes, someone came out of a fight scene covered in manure. Sometimes, people came out of it with mixed results...as Josef von Taserich did when Fate forced him to become the first true master of the darkest form of the Atom of True Life to fight off the Old Ones' influence on humanity alongside a native of Crimea who became immortal in his own right named Résav'l, known these days as Lord Rjazán'. And while, for the most part, the demons who had tried to turn Earth into their own personal Hell had been contained by local powers such as the Slayers and magical warriors over the generations, there were threats of an even greater nature that would overwhelm even the most knowledgeable magical or metahuman researcher. Haruhi understood said threats; Yiziba had often been threatened in the same way and it had fallen to people like the Weaver to deal with them.

Quite permanently, of course.

"Mercy" was a concept Yizibajohei didn't understand when it came to dealing with enemy metahumans or other such beings.

And while she had not unleashed any death scenes since she was Gifted...

...Haruhi had the memories of past-selves who slaughtered thousands with considerable élan over the last two millennia.

"Ah! Isn't that cute, Haruhi-chan?!"

Haruhi perked, then she looked over...

...before she sighed. "Ōsaka...!"

* * *

 _ **Approximately twenty-eight kilometres east of south from Vicki Keith Point and ten kilometres northwest of the entrance of Port Weller Harbour, that moment...**_

"What the HELL...?!"

The tiny converted cargo schooner that had been pressed into service as part of the United States Navy's small squadron on Lake Ontario when hostilities began with the British in 1812 could only blink in confusion as she gazed up at a clear sky.

With the position of the sun off to her port midships, it was morning.

Or afternoon. She had no idea...

Oh, it was morning. Her compass just indicated where magnetic north was.

Even better, it was a beautiful late spring or early summer day, a slight yet welcoming cool breeze flowing past her from starboard to port. If she was still where she had been when that squall overcame her, the enclosed bay at the western end of Lake Ontario was well off to her starboard, the Niagara Peninsula to her stern and York dead ahead of her.

Except...

Except that...

Blinking again — then marvelling that she could actually _**blink**_ — the schooner once christened _Diana_ before she had been renamed in honour of the Secretary of the Navy, the Honourable Paul Hamilton of South Carolina shook her head...then stopped as she realized that she had a HEAD of all things. Blinking yet again as her mind — she actually had a BRAIN now?! — processed all the weird sensations that was now flowing into her, the distant and dim memories of her crew soon made her realize that she was lying down on some sort of muddy ground. Scowling as she wondered how the devil she had run aground, Hamilton grunted as she lifted herself up to a sitting position...then she stopped again, shaking her head as she realized that some power had transformed a seventy-six ton schooner into a human being...and a human WOMAN at that!

Taking a deep breath of fresh air — then stopping as the sensation of such air flowing into her lungs nearly overcame her for a moment — she slowly got up, looking down to see a pair of silver form-fitting slacks covering her legs, they flowing into black leather boots. Lifting her arms, she realized she was wearing a dark blue navy officer's uniform with gold trim and a double-breasted front lined with buttons. The weight of a gold frilled epaulette on her port side — her left shoulder — made her a lieutenant in the United States Navy. Frowning as she wondered again what strange power just did this to her — the last thing she could remember with true clarity was the squall that had swamped her when her squadron was about to deal with their enemies south of York — Hamilton blinked as she reached up to scratch the back of her head. She then blinked on realizing that she had a proper lieutenant's fore-and-aft bi-corn on her head. Chuckling, she then turned to the north to doff her hat...

...then she stopped and gaped on seeing a cityscape the likes of which she could never have imagined, it pierced almost in the middle by a tall, slender grey-and-white tower with some sort of crown-like structure almost two-thirds of the way up its side. It was framed off to the east by many tall towers built of materials that Hamilton couldn't really recognize, even if glass seemed prominent. Were those things framed in metal? How could something THAT tall be built...?

"Hamilton...?"

Hearing that wispy voice with its slight British accent, Hamilton's head snapped to port...

...then she gaped on seeing the girl of about fifteen years of age standing there, blushing madly in the uniform of a sailing master of the United States Navy, the confusion on her face quite apparent to the former trade schooner. Before she could demand what was going on, Hamilton then blinked as she sensed the ghostly image of a welcome sight surrounding this girl, one that made the schooner instantly relax on seeing the flag of the Union with its fifteen stripes and fifteen stars flying from her backstay line. Smirking as she stood to attention, Hamilton doffed her cap to the other schooner, politely bowing her head. "United States Ship _Scourge_ , I presume?" she asked as her eyes instantly twinkled in amusement.

The other girl — schooner? — blinked before she doffed her hat in return. "Indeed I am. I assume you are United States Ship _Hamilton_ , correct? Formerly schooner _Diana_ before the dreadful business with the British started last year?"

"The same. Charmed to see you, even like this."

"Aye! You can say that! What the devil happened to us?! And where are we?! That can't POSSIBLY be York over there!"

Here, she indicated the vast alien metropolis off to their north. Hamilton sighed as she gazed once more on that tall, slender tower before she shook her head. "I doubt the Colossus of Rhodes could ever compare to that!" she muttered as she slipped her hat back on. "Well, it's a clear day for sailing. Should we make our way back to Sackets Harbour? It seems that we still have our hulls' strengths and our armament. Our crew seems to be with us as well..." She then blinked. "Er...?"

Scourge blinked, then looked at her right shoulder to see a diminutive creature dressed as she now standing there, an amused smile on its — her? — face. [We're as baffled at this as you are, ma'am], the creature said in a voice that the schooner recognized as her own master, Joseph Osgood...whom she now realized had died in the storm that sank her. [It seems the Good Lord decided we had to return back to life, even if we look like this. As to the 'why'...!]

The two schooners hummed. "Sackets Harbour?" Hamilton proposed again.

Scourge blinked. Hamilton had been commanded by a proper naval lieutenant, so she was technically the flagship of their ad hoc "squadron" now. "No. Let's go towards that city there." She pointed to the shoreline to the south of them, where a more normal-looking city — though one of considerable size, with a lake frontage of at least four miles — now lay. "I think that's the entrance to Twelve Mile Creek over there, with the lighthouse marking it. Don't recognize the peninsula there, though." Here, she first pointed directly to their south at about six miles to the south-southeast of their current position, then she pointed to the long stretch of land sticking out from the shoreline to the southeast of their position at about five miles.

"Oh, that's right. You were built at Newark as I recall."

"Yes. The mountain ridge is recognizable, though the city is not. I know some people from Butler's Rangers settled in this area after the War of Independence, but I don't recall any village names. Shall we...?"

"Mom! Mom! Look! It's a pair of shipgirls!"

Both schooners perked, then their heads snapped to the south-southwest...

...before they gaped on seeing the beautiful white boat about half the size of Scourge's hull — with no visible sign of what propelled it on the waves! — now moving towards them, a strange puttering noise echoing in the background. At first quite surprised to see something so sleek and made of some material that wasn't decent wood, both Scourge and Hamilton then relaxed on seeing the American flag fly from the winged mast at the top of the superstructure...

...though this one had FIFTY stars in the canton atop thirteen stripes.

"Oh, my God!" a man's voice then called out as footfalls heralded the arrival of a middle-aged fellow in clothing that didn't match any fashion neither schooner could recognize. Stopping to stare at them, he then straightened himself, instantly adopting a military bearing that made both Hamilton and Scourge relax. "Ladies, forgive me. May I have your names, please?" he then asked as he raised his right arm in a strange flat-palm salute, middle fingertip to his eyebrow.

Both schooners doffed their caps in return. "United States Ships _Hamilton_ and _Scourge_ , part of Commodore Isaac Chauncey's squadron out of Sackets Harbour," Hamilton replied for them both. "And your name, good sir?"

He lowered his arm. "John Bennett, ma'am. Sergeant Major, United States Army, retired. With all due respect, ladies, how the HELL did you get summoned back like this?! And all the way out here and not Great Lakes?!"

Both schooners exchanged looks, then Hamilton sighed while Scourge shook her head. "I assumed by the term 'summoned', this is not the first time this has happened, Sergeant Major?" she asked as she crossed her arms.

Hearing that, Bennett sighed. "You best come aboard, ma'am. This is going to be a VERY long story," he then warned.

"Oh, charming..." Scourge muttered...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Kuromoroboshi** — Literally "black meteor shower", borrowing one possible translation of Ataru's family name; **Shinobi** — Literally "to sneak", this is another term for a ninja; **Mausebär** — Mouse-bear; **Babenberg Akademie der Zauberei** — Babenberg Academy of Sorcery; **Anschluss** — Joining; **Eid unterstützendes Führerprinzip** — Oath Supporting the "Leader Principle" (the **Führerprinzip** was the basis of Nazi law, declaring that Hitler's decisions could not be challenged); **Unternehmen Werwolf** — Operation Werewolf; **Eure Majestät** — Your Majesty; **Premierminister** — Prime minister; **Kanadisches Ministerium** — Canadian Ministry (of Magical Affairs); **Te Pakanga o Aotearoa** — Warship of New Zealand (short-formed **TPA** ); **FISS** — Acronym for "flight, invulnerability, super-strength and super-speed" (first introduced in the comic series _**PS238**_ , created by Aaron Williams); **Dai-ichi Shinrai-chūtai** — Literally "First Thunder God Company".

 **Kyōshinsu** ( **Hisamura Natsuki** ) is named in tribute to the Shintō god of the sword, **Futsunushi** ; the kanji in both names is written **経津主** , with the kami's name using the local kun'yomi reading and the metahuman using one of the Sino-Japanese on'yomi readings. Natsuki himself is based on the admiral character in a series of dōjinshi written by **Munmu-san** ; such are available to be viewed at the Danbooru website. A nod to her, of course. The Hisamura Natsuki in the dōjinshi is a former Ground Self-Defence Force major forced to become leader of a group of shipgirls, trained as a special forces infantryman who is more than willing to work hard to make the place better for his charges. He's also quite willing to share baths with his girls, clearly not the least bit shy when it comes to showing off to such impressionable maidens. Since I made the Natsuki of this story a late Meiji Era man, his attitudes to the shipgirls as noted here are more than understandable.

Shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **AUSTRALIA  
**_ **HMAS Canberra** — Alice Caroline Dixon

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **NCSM Québec** (ex-HMS Uganda) — Louise Josephine Papineau

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Furutaka** — Hiraga Fujiko  
 **THG Kako** — Hiraga Kahori  
 **THG Aoba** — Fujimoto Ayako  
 **THG Kinugasa** — Fujimoto Kinue  
 **THG Zuihō** — Takasaki Sumiko

 _ **NEW ZEALAND  
**_ **HMNZS Te Ika** — Adele Kaia Tamatea a Māui

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Astoria (1933)** — Jane Leila Astor  
 **USS Chicago (1930)** — Ella Margaret Britten  
 **USS Quincy (1935)** — Catharine Jane Quincy  
 **USS Vincennes (1936)** — Harriet Virginia Riefkohl  
 **USS Chicago (1944)** — Mary Margaret Kelly  
 **USS Lexington (1925)** — Helen Rebecca Robinson  
 **USS Hamilton (1809)** — Diana Hamilton  
 **USS Scourge (1812)** — Josephine Osgood


	20. Return, The Liberty Legion

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Orbiting over the north pole of Jupiter (Toronto time: Wednesday 24 May, an hour before lunch; Tōkyō time: Thursday 25 May, midnight)...**_

"They're gonna do it?"

"Yeah, they're gonna try it. Whether or not they'll succeed, though..."

Hearing that wry observation from the head of the observation team dispatched by the Galactic Federation of Planet-states to this solar system to keep an eye on events on the third planet of Sol, the lone Urusian in the group could only sigh. "Idiots," Dedron Jorash muttered under his breath. He was a twenty-something raven-haired Oni who was a second cousin to the current clan matriarch and one of Redet Lum's childhood friends, Dedron Sil. "The War Hawks are known to be back. All countries who had metahumans who trained at that school the Jewel Warrior of that planet set up are actively helping the ship-spirits defend the coastlines from these Abyssal things, never mind what the magicals on that planet have been doing. And we just picked up the flash traffic concerning the return of one of the Japanese metahumans from their last world war. Never mind how many of They Who Must Never Be Named are on that planet right now! What is Yethis doing?!"

"He can't stand the idea of 'lessers' getting the better of them," the leader of the group said with an amused smirk. A native of Kōmoros and distant cousin to the Prince of the Underworld who served as that planet's monarch, Prash was a middle-aged woman blessed with the shoulder-mounted wings females of her species were born with. While being cramped inside a small observation station orbiting a massive gas giant planet wasn't her particular cup of lava tea, it was a necessary duty. Especially if there was some sort of involvement by THEM. "You should know that by now, Jorash. Besides, what's his issue? Given the interest Skelad Lara has in pursuing Invader's girl, the Imperials have no reason to complain now."

Rueful chuckles escaped the others in the team as they focused their attention on readouts from a string of high-resolution sub-space cameras needed to keep a close watch on Earth. With the loss of the Urusians' observation post on the minor planet Ceres — it was now known that the Avalonians took over the place shortly after the Liberation nine months ago to cut off intelligence gathering concerning Earth while certain parties moved to sweep the planet clean of all Niphentaxian observers — and with the imposition of a highly-sensitive sensor grid at the line of the asteroid belt that would cause warp drives and other power dynamos to detonate if any ship travelled into the inner part of the solar system, those planets who once had vested interests in the third world of Sol had been totally cut off from Terrans. Never mind the fact that adopted members of the ONE race citizens of ALL member states of the Galactic Federation feared above all else were on planet, including the one hyper-genius who had been moving to cut Earth off from access while Lum had been pursuing her "husband" in Tomobiki.

A "husband" who had gained his own considerably dark metahuman power.

As the news feed from America's CNN and the British BBC plastered over satellite transmissions not four hours before.

Remembering the shell-shocked and horrified looks on the faces of several heads-of-state who had been instantly briefed on the Cyborg by Prash and her team, the Kōmori deep space explorer could only smirk in amusement.

No wonder the Noukiites had the man declared a "servant to angels" when the news went public a month ago.

To be the living mortal avatar of a GOD OF DEATH...?!

Never mind the OTHER conclusion one could make now concerning Moroboshi Ataru.

 _ **The Chosen One of the Eternal Voyager.**_

No wonder the lad had such vivid harem dreams in his youth.

If he actually went to the home planet of the Maidens themselves once...!

She jolted on hearing a beeping noise from one station. "Who's calling?"

"It's the _Renegade_ , Commander," the lone Fukunokami in the group, Shogai Korth, responded as he looked up from his board.

"Main screen."

People immediately focused their attention to the main view screen, which instantly melted into the image of a strikingly handsome Vosian male of about eighty Earth years of age, which made him physically in his mid-twenties by the standards of "short life" races. "Hunter Commander," Prash hailed as smiles crossed the faces of the people in the station's main control centre. Unlike the Urusian monitors who had been active on Ceres — all of whom had been chosen for their close links to the right-wing Imperial Round, with worldviews that made all other sentient species "lesser" than their own, fit only for enslavement or extermination — the Federation's monitor team were all chosen for their political neutrality or sympathy concerning the Terrans. After all, it wasn't their fault that their solar system was caught in the middle of a galactic crossroads between many competing powers. "I take it you're here to make those idiots now on the orbit line of Jupiter go home?"

"Of course I am, Chief Observer," Nassur of Vos said with an amused grin that didn't reflect in his brilliant blue eyes. "That 'mission' wasn't authorized by the Urusian Central Cabinet Command whatsoever. Given the presence of many adopted natives of the third world of Kaeyu on Earth, I don't want to see a Mother of All Fight Scenes start up just because Seq Yethis is being an idiot." As people tensed on hearing the ONE phrase that was feared among all sentient species in the local cluster, the independent bounty hunter and part-time special field agent of the Galactic Federation sat back in his command chair. "If you're looking over Earth right now, you might want to focus on North America and scan for heavy chroniton particles. Mostly emanating from the site of the Battle of Toronto in 1945 their time. I think you people know the significance of that."

"The last metahuman battle of the Second World War," Jorash stated, earning him curious looks from his co-workers. "The last survivors of the Übermenschen Gruppe from Nazi Germany launched a 'banzai charge' on Toronto in hopes of drawing out the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom to destroy them all as a way of depriving the Americans and the Canadians of experienced metahuman warriors in the post-war period. The War Hawks and the last of the Japanese Thunder Companies who weren't driven totally mad because of what the Black Dragon Society did to empower them went to stop it. No one knows what really happened, but the Legion, the Soldiers and the Übermenschen all disappeared that day without a trace."

Nassur nodded. "They were going to detonate a mesonium bomb that could have devastated the lower Great Lakes basin." As the observers all hissed out in horror on hearing that, he added, "Master William Costilow — known as Mister Mystical — used his powers to get energy boosts from his friends to create a null-space bubble to force the Übermenschen into them, then teleport it safely into space to allow the bomb to detonate and kill no one. The Legion and the Soldiers got dragged into it when their enemies tried to trigger the detonation early. The War Hawks didn't arrive in time until they were literally phased out of this reality." He shook his head. "Given how distraught she was on seeing so many good people 'die' like that, General Raeburn couldn't focus on what happened. Fortunately, Ride Master Taserich discovered what was going on, then asked Suzumiya Haruhi to help out since her powers as the Weaver give her control over pocket dimensions." He ignored the observers' winces on hearing the battle-name of the Mistress of Time and Space. "Right now, Haruhi-cha should be...!"

A massive flash of energy bloomed in nearby space off to everyone's left!

"Correction. She just teleported the bomb and the surviving Übermenschen into that asteroid cannon the Imperials just put there," Nassur finished with a wry smile as he gave the observers a knowing look. "Easily resolved."

"What about Master William and his friends?" Prash asked.

"Got something!"

Eyes locked on Holla de Baraton. The lone Ellsian of the group, she was a thirty-something expert on warp dynamics. "Picking up minute space-warps appearing all over the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada," she said as her green eyes widened in disbelief. "All known home towns of the members of the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom." She then smiled. "Well, that should make Commissioner Larsden's day. His beloved was one of the Soldiers."

"Mistress Valerie Sanipass, Earth's own Weaver," Jorash said with a delighted smile and a clap of his hands. "Maidens! With the Undying Lord back as well, they're going to finally win this damned war of theirs!"

"Please pass on my compliments to the Ride Master and Miss Haruhi about that, Nassur," Prash said as the other observers all began to whoop and cheer at the first truly positive sign about a war that people hadn't really known about.

No thanks to a certain "president" from Phentax Two, of course.

 _Whatever went through that selfish brat's mind?!_ Prash wondered as she thought of Ōgi ot'ndai-Zkuhsbagh...

* * *

 _ **Naval Base Kitsap, the cafeteria, that moment (local time: Wednesday 24 May, breakfast)...**_

"Hey...did you guys feel that?"

Hearing that worried question from Cassin Young, the others of Destroyer Division 109 all perked before they relaxed themselves and began to look around. "Yeah! Now that you mention it, Caitlin, I did feel something," Porterfield said before she looked over. "Hey! Dakota! Can you come over here for a sec'?!" she barked out to a certain blonde battleship who had just walked into the space alongside her oldest friend and that battleship's lover. "We got a problem here!"

South Dakota blinked, then she walked over, followed immediately by Washington and Sarah Gale. "What's up, guys?!" the lead of her class of fast battleships asked as they took seats close to the four Fletcher-class destroyers.

"We just felt something weird pip our Mark 12s, Dakota," Young said. "Something from the direction of Seattle, near the University District. It just came in right now. But it's too far inland for an Abyssal manifestation..."

"Um, excuse me, Commanders."

Everyone's head snapped over as the chief of the cafeteria, Senior Chief Culinary Specialist Donna Kelley, came over to them. "What's up, Chief?" Dakota asked as she and Washington accepted the salute from the native of Macon in Georgia.

"Something's going on with our invisible cooks, Commander Leigh Gatch," Kelley stated in a quiet voice. It really wasn't necessary these days, but long-ingrained habits when it came to dealing with anything magical necessitated it since that normally dragged lunatics supporting the Magical Congress of the United States into the business, which made headaches for everyone. "Something's made them start to cry and all that. I don't want to do anything that would get the staleblood morons from the other side of the Hudson over here to cause more shit. But they're really bothered about something..."

Dakota exchanged looks with Washington, then both nodded before they headed back to the side entrance to the cooking area, they followed by Gale. Returning the salutes from the junior cooks, both battleships instantly focused on a small gathering of house elves, dressed in Navy Work Uniforms shrunk down to fit their slender bodies, no rank insignia on their collars. All of them were roughly middle-aged by their race's terms; when they were secretly brought on strength four years ago, the leader of the group declared she had been asked to watch over the residence of her mistress since after World War Two ended. Said mistress' name was unknown, but the head elf proudly declared that her mistress would have insisted that the elves do anything they could for the war effort. Dakota knew their magic had been boosted by ruby mesonium drawn from someone's blood, which probably made the elves' mistress a true metahuman by the modern definition. As to who she could be, no one knew and no one had the heart to ask; whenever they were asked, the elves broke down and cried, unable to say anything for almost an hour. Since the little buggers had been such a huge help in keeping people fed, the human staff just left them be.

"Hey, guys!" Dakota called out.

The elves looked over, then their ears perked on seeing who had just come to talk to them. "Mistress Dakota! Mistress Ida! Miss Sarah! We is sorry!" the leader of the group, Taffy, said as she bowed her head.

"It's okay," the battleship soothed as she knelt before the elves, making them all shudder as they felt the friendly aura of the lead of her class. "The guys here saw you were all crying and got concerned. What's up?"

"Mistress has returned!" another elf, Jonsey, then said with a near-sob.

Jaws dropped. "Your mistress has returned?! What happened to her?!" Gale asked.

"Mistress was at the Battle of Toronto!" yet another elf, Cappy, said, which made the shipgirls gasp. "She and her friends tries to stops evil metas from letting big bomb destroy all of Great Lady Gichi-Gami's beautiful lakes! Master William makes big spell that takes bomb away, but all of Mistress' friends in Legion and Soldiers had to help keep evil metas trapped so no ones hurt!" She began to sob. "Mistress was so brave! All she wanted was to be a teacher to little ones...!"

"Mother of God...!"

That was a white-faced Washington. "Ma'am?" Kelley asked.

The second of the North Carolina-class battleships gazed at the native of Georgia. "Their mistress is _**Jane Kesler**_ , Senior Chief," she declared, making all the elves wail on hearing their revered owner's name spoken aloud. " _ **Hypno-Girl**_."

That made the humans hearing this all stop and gape. "From the _**Liberty Legion**_ , Ida?!" Gale exclaimed. "How the hell...?!"

"Greats Mistress of Times and Spaces brings them back!" Taffy said before she covered her face with her bony hands.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **Suzumiya Haruhi**_ ," Dakota then declared. "Wonder what got _**her**_ involved..."

"I thought people like her were staying out of this," Washington mused before she shook her head. "Oh, my...!"

"Ida...!" Gale said as she moved to comfort.

The namesake of the Evergreen State shook her head again. "Miss Kesler came aboard for a USO rally when I came here after I had that collision with Joanna Jennings," she said as she gave her fiancée a reassuring look. "She signed my guest book with her real name and battle-name and was declared an honorary member of my crew!" As the elves gasped on hearing that, Washington gazed at Taffy. "Go get your mistress and bring her here. If that battle was as bad as the reports said...!"

"She's be hungry!" the elf squeaked before she vanished with a _POP!_

* * *

 _ **Atlantic City, that moment...**_

"Mistress has returned! Mistress has returned! Mistress has returned!"

Hearing the cheers of the senior elf that had watched over the Cesare home for the past seven decades since the well-known socialite vanished with her friends in the Liberty Legion during their last battle against the Nazis, the tall yet curvy blue-eyed blonde now in a dated blouse and calf-length skirt that had been the height of fashion in the 1940s could only shake her head as she gazed out the living room windows that overlooked the Boardwalk and the rolling sea beyond. Surprised to see so few people enjoying the morning sun, Valerie Cesare could only shake her head as she sipped the coffee Lefty had created for her as soon as she was teleported home by that very nice young Japanese girl who found her and the others of the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom in the warp bubble William Costilow created to contain the bomb the last of the Übermenschen had forged to devastate an area that could have spanned from Chicago to New York...with Toronto at the very epicentre.

Given the great powers that had been on Earth since long before modern humanity had arose in Africa thousands of years ago, doing that would have unleashed something that could have killed BILLIONS in the end.

 _Not on my conscience_ , thought the immigrant's daughter also known as _**Ultra Girl**_ when she donned her red-trimmed dark blue one-piece swimsuit-like battle uniform and go forth to perform her "voluntary deeds of public service" — quoting the only Newfoundlander member of the Soldiers of Freedom, Jessica Parkin, also known as _**Cardinal**_ — and keep potential evildoers from hurting innocent and defenceless people. _Even if I'm in a strange time with so much having happened, I wouldn't have done anything different if something like that happened again. Not me, not anyone in the Legion or the Soldiers._ She shook her head. _I just hope the Major and her friends understood that. Given how vicious they were in the war...!_

"Is Mistress alright?"

Cesare looked down at Louie. To mark the hidden connections the socialite had with the various elements of the American mafia, all the house elves that had served her so well dressed in the pinstripe suits that gangsters of the Roaring Twenties always wore to make themselves look "respectable". Like many other elements of society in those days, people such as Al Capone and Charlie Luciano were fully aware of America's hidden magical enclaves; try as the arrogant "stalebloods" who saw themselves loyal to the conservatives in the Magical Congress might, attempts at making the Mob forget the existence of magicals had been dead aborning thanks to metahumans in allied families back in the old country such as the Vongola. "I'm alright, Louie," the socialite stated as she sipped her coffee. "Where are the beach-goers? It's May and the sun's out."

The elves seemed to physically wince. "Mistress doesn't knows about the Abyssals!" Lefty then hissed, earning him nods from his brother and sister elves and a curious look from their mistress. "They be evil beings that comes from deepest oceans, Mistress! They hates all living things that lives on surface! When they attacked human ships, magicals tries to stops them, but they keeps coming! Only shipgirls and metahumans can fights Abyssals, Mistress!"

That made Cesare gape before she relaxed herself. _Jeff? Can you hear me?!_

«Loud and clear, Val,» came back the telepathic voice of Jeffrey Wilcox, known more commonly as the _**Sixth Sensor**_ ; he was one of the master psychics in the Legion, matched only by Jane Kesler. «Just got an earful from the elves that watched over my house. You just got told about the Abyssals, I take it?» An amused tone was in his mental voice.

 _Unfortunately_ , the most physically powerful of the Legion breathed out.

«I'm looking into that right now, Val,» a new voice cut in, one Cesare recognized as that of William Costilow, the powerful psychokinetic who had once been mistaken as a rogue magical, especially given his chosen battle-name, _**Mister Mystical**_. «Some places in Boston and the neighbouring towns looked like some of the cities in Germany after the Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command came by to visit. There are girls out on the bay right now, looking like they're _**skating**_ on the water!»

«Shipgirls, Bill,» Wilcox affirmed. «Crazy as this will sound to you, they're the living spirits of warships that were summoned from the Beyond by some ritual that was found in Master Hosan's study on Watari Island by a battle-mage from Wales that went to Meridiana. Wouldn't expect a Hogwarts alumnus to come up with that, much less anyone from Ilvermorny.» Scorn dripped every word he "said". Jeffrey Wilcox gladly helped no-maj-born rebels against the purebloods that dominated the Magical Congress in the 1930s by getting them to safety in Canada, where their right to live as they wanted to while respecting a more milder interpretation of the Statute of Secrecy was practised. Naturally, the conservatives that wanted as strict of a separation between magicals and "no-majs" as possible never cared for the road engineer and amateur astrologist from Montpelier; in their eyes, Wilcox was almost as bad as Costilow when it came to how the Statute was upheld.

«That's not so crazy, Jeff,» Costilow noted with a wry chuckle from his home in Salem. «I toured the _Constitution_ both before and during the war. I could sense there was some sort of living spirit inside her. Doesn't sound so far-fetched to me.»

Cesare nodded...

...before her ultra-sharp vision picked out a small group of beings now skating on the water at the very horizon, about fifty miles' distance. "Guys! I got something coming towards the Boardwalk right now!" she then called out.

As the elves instantly all peered at what had just attracted their mistress' attention, Cesare felt Wilcox reach into her mind to effectively photostat what she was seeing for the attention of others in this mental "radio chat" she and her friends were having now. A moment later, Wilcox sighed. «Okay, that's the spiritual equivalent of four light cruisers and a baker's dozen destroyers. I don't sense any submarine types, but since they've popped up in the Atlantic over the last decade or so, you shouldn't assume they're not there, Val. You want to do this alone or do you need some of the other big heavy hitters?»

"I can dead-lift the weight of the _New Jersey_ herself, Jeff," Cesare smirked as the elves all squealed in delight on seeing that their mistress was ready to go into action even now, so soon after she just returned home.

«I'll get Bryce over there.»

"Spoilsport! Lefty, get my suit!"

"Yes, Mistress!" _POP!_

* * *

 _ **In the skies over Atlantic City, fifteen minutes later...**_

"Hey, Trip! Down on the deck at five o'clock!"

Hearing that from his wingman, David "Trip" McMann, major in the New Jersey Air National Guard's 119th "Jersey Devils" Fighter Squadron, perked before he looked to his right aft down towards the rolling Atlantic several thousand feet below...

"Shit! I see it, Luke!" the native of Egg Harbour City northwest of his squadron's normal home base — the Jersey Devils relocated from Atlantic City International Airport to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst after the general war began five years ago and major coastal cities were bombarded by mass formations of the enemy; fortunately, Atlantic City hadn't been one — called back as he did a quick head-count. Four big wakes that weren't battleships or carriers; most likely cruisers of some type. Fourteen destroyers. And while there was no sign of sub-surface contacts, that had to automatically be assumed; despite "Die Glückliche Zeit" as returned German U-boats always called the wonderful hunting season they confronted on being returned as subgirls, the enemy always had their own pig boats around to make life hell for everyone. "I count me four possible enemy Charlie-Limas and fourteen Delta-Deltas," he then called out. "Let's do a close...!"

"Devil Lead, this is Sky Nine, come in!"

McMann grunted. "Sky Nine, Devil Lead, go!"

"Be advised, we just picked up something flying now out of Atlantic City," Master Sergeant Brenda Parker, senior air controller aboard an E-3G Sentry AWACS of the 960th Airborne Air Control Squadron from Tinker Air Force Base now operating out of JB-MDL, called out. "Whatever it is, it's kicking up to Mach Six and moving to intercept something off shore, on bearing 147 magnetic from the area of the Tropicana Atlantic City. Altitude's about a hundred feet off the damned deck!"

McMann's eyes widened. "Sky Nine, confirm: Did you say Mach SIX?!"

"That's affirmative!"

"Oi, Dave! You don't think...?!" McMann's wingman, Captain Carl "Cool Luke" Walker, sputtered out. "It's HER...?!"

"Devil Two, what are you talking about...?!" Parker demanded.

"Ultra Girl," McMann declared in a stunned voice.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Devil Lead, this is Hotspot," the voice of the commanding officer of the 119th, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph "Big Jo" Talbert, called out from his current location at the control tower overlooking the former McGuire Air Force Base's main landing field. "Proceed down to the deck and investigate. You spotted an enemy formation there, Dave. If this IS Miss Cesare or someone related to her, she must have seen the formation from her home near the Boardwalk. Give her a hand, guys."

"Yes, SIR!" McMann called out as Walker whooped. "Stay with me, Luke!"

"Roger that, Trip!"

The F-16D Fighting Falcons tipped over on their starboard wings, then dived to the deck as the pilots hit their afterburners...

* * *

 _ **On the surface...**_

" _ **Two aircraft now approaching...**_ "

" _ **I see them. Fighting Falcons of the 119th Squadron.**_ "

The lead Tsu-class light cruiser smirked as her suite of impressive 5 inch 38 calibre dual-purpose guns elevated themselves to fill the air over their group with enough flak that the approaching jet fighters would have to stay well-clear of the Abyssals if they wished not to be shot down. Smirking in anticipation of capturing the pilots and subjecting them to quite interesting tortures while she moved to birth new members of her kind, the cruiser didn't see what was coming at them from the direction of the city where that strange energy wave had emerged from, perking the patrol squadron's interest...

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

The cruiser gasped before she looked right...

...then blinked owlishly on seeing an empty space beside her where one of her sisters had just been seconds before!

* * *

 _ **Two thousand feet above sea level...**_

"WHOA! Did you see that, Trip?!"

"Yeah, I did!" Dave McMann said with a whoop on seeing that blue-and-red blur slam head-on into one of the cruisers — most likely a Tsu-class anti-aircraft cruiser, a butt-ugly Abyssal take-off on an Atlanta-class or its British equivalent, a Dido-class — and sending the hapless sea demon soaring into the sky at well over Mach One, something the Abyssal clearly hadn't been built to tolerate, especially from the likes of what was the Garden State's most famous daughter.

Julia Valerie Veronica Cesare.

The Blonde Bombshell of the Boardwalk.

 _ **Ultra Girl**_.

"Faster than an intercontinental ballistic missile!" Carl Walker then chanted.

"More powerful than a nuclear aircraft carrier!" McMann chimed in, trying not to laugh.

"Able to fly to the Moon faster than a Saturn Five!"

"Look! Up in the sky!"

"It's a bird!"

"It's a plane!"

" _ **IT'S ULTRA GIRL!**_ " both pilots then crooned.

Howling laughter filled the airwaves. "Guys! That's COPYRIGHTED!" Brenda Parker warned from the Sentry now over the southern part of New Jersey, getting a roar of laughter from McMann and Walker, plus their mates at JB-MDL...

"Black Dragon to Devil Lead!"

Hearing that familiar voice, McMann perked. "That you, Big J?! I heard you were in Japan! What the HELL, Commander...?!"

"Thanks to a fleet-mate who can talk to phoenixes, Trip!" the voice of the second of the Iowa-class battleships called back. "I'm coming towards the formation from the area of Dewey Beach over in Delaware! The Taffies, Bucky, Poi McPoi-face and DESDIV Six are with me with their mom-boats!" The pilot then smirked on hearing an undignified squawk from who clearly was Tenryū. "Big E's with us, too; ditto with her main squeeze! If Val-Gal's willing to let us cut in...!"

"She's busy with one of the Tsu-class, Commander!" Walker stated as he looked up to the tiny dot now making sonic booms as it rose like a homesick angel into the high atmosphere. "Looks like the rest of them are in the clear, ma'am!"

"Sweet! You got a solution, Yasuko?!"

"Affirmative, Kathy-san!"

"Cool! Let's wreck some shit!"

Brilliant flashes of light and smoke from the general direction of the Atlantic coast of Delaware off to the southwest quickly denoted the firing of six 16 inch Mark 7 naval rifles, followed by six 18.1 inch Type 94 rifles...

* * *

 _ **Higher in the sky...**_

The Tsu-class cruiser who had just been rammed in the midsection by the blonde-haired missile that had flown from Atlantic City at a speed not even the infamous SR-71 Blackbird could equal shuddered as she tried to struggle free of the inhuman bear hug gripping her. Her weapons couldn't fire as the thing holding her fast was in such a position that none of the turrets could come to bear. Even more so, the clear sky overhead was turning into the darker blue of near-orbital space. Crying out as she summoned what strength she had, the Abyssal tried to throw all her strength into forcing those arms away from her...

...then she blinked as she felt gravity seize her, dragging her down stern-over-bow towards the distant ocean below.

"Going down?"

The cruiser looked up at the hovering freak human who had put her into that position, then she screamed out a torrent of obscenities in a dozen languages, her fist shaking in defiance as Ultra Girl just hovered there, her arms crossed and a neutral look on her face. Before the cruiser could try to think of SOME way to survive a multi-mile fall onto unforgiving water, a blond-and-chestnut red streak raced up from below, the silver glint of a drawn two-handed sword coming with him. The Tsu-class gasped as her radar picked up the oncoming missile charging at her from astern, then she flopped around...

...before she was literally cleaved in half at the waist by the oncoming banker from North Chicago known more commonly to his fans as the Human Rocket, _**Starflare**_. The Abyssal's death scream was instantly cut off when her magazines detonated and turned her into a mist of burnt body parts and shattered equipment, though the fireball didn't harm the man born Bryce Carruthers as he moved to hover beside his friend. "Too many Bugs Bunny cartoons, Val," the Illinoisan banker scolded.

Both then perked on hearing the deep thunder of heavy naval artillery echo from somewhere to their southwest, making them turn to look at the obvious wakes of two battleships, an aircraft carrier, two cruisers and a large platoon of destroyers charging towards the enemy fleet now moving on Atlantic City. With their enhanced eyesight, both Starflare and Ultra Girl were quick to see that the "ships" were actually women, physically spanning from about their age to pre-teen years. All of them had strange combat webbing strapped to parts of their bodies, including what look like miniature versions of the main turrets and superstructures of warships. "Shipgirls," Starflare then muttered, shaking his head. "This is just unbelievable..."

"They often said the same thing about _**us**_ , Bryce," Ultra Girl reminded him.

A wry smirk crossed the banker's face. "True..."

A pained scream then made both metahumans' heads snap over...

* * *

 _ **On the surface...**_

" _ **KID!**_ "

" _ **KODACHI!**_ "

" _ **SHIT! YŪDACHI'S BEEN HIT!**_ "

" _ **KODACHI-CHAN!**_ "

" _ **HANG ON, 'DACHI! I'M COMING!**_ "

Yūdachi gargled as her body seemed to light up on fire while she collapsed face-first into the waters, her faerie crew reacting as they moved to contain the horrible damage she just took from a phalanx of torpedoes that just ploughed into her starboard side. To the human side of the destroyer also known as Hamamoto Kodachi, her whole right leg from below the knee just vanished in a shower of shattered bone, shredded skin and muscle and a mist-like bubble of spilled blood, never mind a good hunk of her right hip and the spine at the base of her back being ripped apart by flying shrapnel. On the shipgirl side of the fourth of the Shiratsuyu-class destroyers, her turbines, aft quadruple torpedo launchers and the magazine for her aft twin 12.7 centimetre 50 calibre Type 3 mount all went up in a geyser of exploding metal and billowing gas. Screaming in pain, Yūdachi began to settle into the waves as a mixture of oil and blood formed a deep stain around her. "I'm hit...!" she croaked out.

Fubuki and Heermann screamed as they moved to rescue their friend while the other destroyers instantly began pinging the waters with their sonar to detect where the enemy submarine was. As the whistle of air racing past a human body heralded the arrival of the Living Rocket, the waters off to Heermann's starboard suddenly surged up like a geyser. Coming to a hover close to the moaning destroyer while Fubuki skidded to a stop nearby, Starflare looked over. "That you, Jen?!"

The other shipgirls looked...

...then they gasped in awed shock as a So-class submarine was instantly pitched OUT of the water, the Abyssal screaming in outrage. A blur of gleaming meson-augmented steel saw Starflare's beautiful two-handed claymore sword spin like a harvester at the snarling submarine, cleaving her in half at the waist. As she exploded from her magazines going up, a lithe form leapt out of the water atop a large wave to expertly catch the sword without harm. "Lucky thing Jeff warned me this was happening!" the Mistress of the Waters, _**Hydra**_ , then called out as she flung the sword back at her teammate before she made a gesture with her hand, creating a bubble of water to pull the sinking Yūdachi clear to safety.

"Get her to the Doc, Jen!" Starflare snapped as he snared his blade, then flew off towards the enemy formation in the wake of a snarling New Jersey and a fuming Yamato, who were being escorted by a hissing Tenryū and an icily smiling Tatsuta.

"You're coming too!" the woman born Jennifer Kampas on Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands said as she gestured.

Fubuki screamed as she was pulled away from Heermann while floating on her own bubble of seawater while the former tour guide from Charlotte Amalie moved to race towards Strathmere on the Jersey coastline with the bleeding Yūdachi. Before the former Argentinian destroyer could wonder what to do now, Johnston came up to her, followed by Hoel. "C'mon! Shake a leg, Kistiñe! We need you! They got a doc in their team! 'Dachi'll be fine!" the leader of Taffy Three snapped.

Heermann shook her head, then turned to race off after her sisters...

* * *

 _ **The White House, that moment...**_

"The _**Liberty Legion**_?!"

"Yes, sir," Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced as he faced his commander-in-chief. "The 119th Fighter Squadron out of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst just spotted Ultra Girl now engaging a cruiser squadron that was moving in on Atlantic City. At last report, Starflare was also spotted; he is now supporting her." He gazed at the iPad before him. "Last report from the 960th Airborne Air Control Squadron detachment at MDL states that a shipgirl force is moving to intercept the enemy formation. Carrier Enterprise, battleships New Jersey and Yamato, light cruisers Tenryū and Tatsuta, destroyers Johnston, Hoel, Heermann, Fubuki, Yūdachi, Akatsuki, Hibiki, Ikazuchi and Inazuma..."

"How did they get to the Atlantic so fast?!" Leo McGarry wondered.

"No doubt, phoenix travel, Leo."

That was Samuel Quahog, who was seated beside Defence Secretary Miles Hutchinson. "You mean Commander Haight-Ashbury?" National Security Advisor Nancy McNally asked. "Mister President, given how some people in the Magical Congress have major issues with shipgirls, is it really wise to have the commander work directly for you? Wouldn't it be smarter to place her under the control of General O'Brien and the Seventh MARDIV? It will make things much easier for Professor Quahog."

"I thank you for your concern, Nancy, but it's best if the commander remains under the President's direct control," Quahog stated with a smile. "Unlike our Canadian, Australian and New Zealander cousins, the Department of Magic and the Magical Congress never cared to create magical militia until the whole issue with Minister Grindelwald and Marshal Yomigawa forced the issue in 1942 thanks to the Übermenschen. For those who know the story, the Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the United States Coloured Troops called to serve in the Civil War against Adam Sewell's rebellion were under command of President Lincoln directly. Besides, my brother Marines have no experience whatsoever controlling a _**ship**_." As people laughed, the secretary of magic added, "Also, given how the commander actually 'returned to duty' as a shipgirl, there will be resentment." As people gazed at him, the transfiguration master from Rhode Island smirked. "I'm aware of the times the commander has viewed the conservatives in the Congress as 'magical squares' who seek to prevent people from enjoying 'free love', quoting her directly. It wouldn't surprise me that she's offered to use her missiles on the headquarters of the Department of Magic and make it look like an Abyssal attack." As people gaped at him, Quahog smirked. "Lucky thing I've had the key administrative staff moved to the old headquarters complex on Mount Greyback, just on the other side of the hill from Ilvermorny."

McGarry perked. "You did that, Professor?"

"It was necessary, Leo." Here, the former Marine infantry officer took a deep breath. "Back when the Grand Banks Princess attacked New York City during Blood Week, dozens of healers, mediwizards, mediwitches and other people with basic first aid training went out into the five boroughs and surrounding cities to help with casualty clearance. When the conservative leaders in the Congress found out what happened, they threatened to impeach me because I 'let things get out of control' like I did." As people shook their heads, Quahog sighed. "Fortunately, Magical Executive Order 10709 as released by President Eisenhower — which corresponds to the passing of the Liberty Legion Memorial Act that legalized America's acceptance of the International Specialized Warfare Treaty of 1957 — cleared all the people who were involved in that from being charged with any crimes. However, because of such 'no-maj interference', the conservatives in the Congress are doing everything they can to make sure people are swayed into supporting them. The people who just attacked Chief Warrant Officer Sarah Gale because of her relationship with Commander Ida Stevens are a symptom of what the conservatives are prepared to do."

"Imperius Curse?" Toby Ziegler asked from one side of the room.

"That's a possibility, Mister Ziegler. There are also potions that could be used to do the same thing." As people scowled on hearing that, Quahog sighed. "With the support of more liberal and constitutionalist members of the Congress, I've created an 'emergency command team' at the Ilvermorny site, ready to take over in case the Abyssals — or Commander Haight-Ashbury — decide to target the Woolworth Building directly. Since the no-majs who rented the normal side of the building evacuated it after Blood Week when it was decided to turn the lower end of Manhattan into a restricted zone to prevent civilian casualties in case of future attacks, I doubt there will be concerns from Mayor de Blasio, much less Governor Cuomo."

"I can't believe we're even talking about something like this," Secretary of the Interior Bill Horton hissed out.

"They just don't want to stop, Mister Secretary!" McNally warned.

"Enough!" Bartlet called out. "Speak your mind, Bill."

"Thank you, Mister President," Horton said with a tired sigh. "Ladies and gentlemen, regardless of what issues Professor Quahog may have with the Magical Congress, I remind you all that organization is a democratically-elected body representing almost all American magicals as ordained in the Magical Constitution, which is an approved part of the overall Constitution of the land. To even CONTEMPLATE the idea of ordering an ATTACK on the Magical Congress because we don't agree with their politics flies in the face of everything this country stands for. WE CAN'T GO DOWN THAT ROAD!" He slammed his palm on the table, making some people jump. "Yes, we know that the Statute of Secrecy is pretty much done for. We know magical leaders worldwide — Professor Dumbledore, Marshal Yomigawa, Marshal Múrometsa and Admiral Harlan among them — are moving to prepare people for the day repeals are issued to make the Statute defunct. We ALSO know most magicals in America, given the incidents that have been reported to our offices in the last five years, are doing their best to help protect and heal people, even at risk of arrest for violating Article II of the Magical Constitution! We also have the Memorial Act, our version of Canada's Specialized Warfare Act. We can use THAT to protect magicals as they adjust to life in the open. Let's let the Magical Congress know they and those they represent will be protected during such a very trying time. Besides, no matter how many people may rail against the question of obliviation, how many aurors from the DMLE, to say anything of volunteers from the Seventh Cavalry Division and the Seventh Marine Division, DIED protecting people before Blood Week?"

"Not only that, I remind everyone that all those who serve in the DMLE and other elements of the Department of Magic take magical oaths to uphold the Magical Constitution, especially Article II," Attorney General Alan Fisk added. "If they violate it, they risk the loss of their powers. With most adult magicals, unless they have a high enough mesonium particle count in their blood, that means loss of LIFE!" As people winced, Fisk added, "That would violate the Eighth Amendment."

Nods around the room. "There will be no more talk about moving militarily against the Magical Congress," Bartlet stated. "In fact, once this is over — and if I'm still in office — I'll sign a Magical Executive Order that will gift the Woolworth Building to the Department of Magic as their permanent headquarters." At Quahog's shocked look at the fact that Bartlet didn't want his department's command group moved back to the District of Columbia, the president smiled. "I know there are still people who were here when Master Cecéclex launched his 'protest' in 1892 that forced President Lincoln to come to Washington." That earned him a nod from the secretary of magic; indeed, there were many workers in the Department of Magic who had memories of the "Great Sasquatch Rebellion", which required the Rail-Splitter to come to Washington to stop it when the United States Marshal Service (Magical) was decimated thanks to pureblood leaders in the Magical Congress calling on hit-wizards to wipe out the Sasquatches without concern to the number of no-majs standing in the way. "In the meantime, what would the legal status of the Liberty Legion be at this time? Miles?" he then asked, gazing on the secretary of defence.

"All seen as 'missing in action', not presumed dead, Mister President," Hutchinson answered with a delighted smile. "Unlike normal situations when soldiers go missing, it was suspected that some sort of extraordinary event may have befallen the Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom at the Battle of Toronto. Due to what was clearly a minor case of PTSD, the Canadian defence department didn't press General Raeburn about it. But metahuman soldiers who went to her home in Clayhurst after she established her private school in 1954 did report sensing the remnants of some sort of spacial warp at the scene of the battle over Lake Ontario. Given his powers, I would say Mister Costilow was responsible. As to the 'why'...?"

«It was a mesonium bomb. Way worse than that firecracker they tested in New Mexico back in July this ye-...» That mental voice then chuckled. «Sorry. I meant back in 1945. Still trying to adjust to being in 2017...»

Quahog gaped. "Jeff?! Is that you?!"

«Hey, Sam! Secretary of Magic, eh?! You came a long way from just being the new transfiguration professor at Ilvermorny!»

" _ **Jeffrey Wilcox**_?!" McNally demanded, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"It's him, Nancy," Quahog assured. "His telepathy resonates in a specific way when it probes into a magical's mind. The times I've 'talked' to him that way both before and during the war before I went to the Pacific is as clear now as it was then."

"Mister Wilcox, welcome back!" Bartlet stated. "I assume all the team is back."

«Both teams, Mister President,» the man also known as the Sixth Sensor answered. «My apologies for eavesdropping, but I was looking for Sam there to get a gauge of what was going on with the Department of Magic. One of those shipgirls who's involved in that fight with those Abyssal things that got Valerie's and Bryce's attention just got badly hurt. Jennifer Kampas is getting her to shore right now. Doc Brodnicki is heading there right now to look in on the poor kid."

"Healer Brodnicki?!" Quahog demanded. "Where exactly, Jeff?!"

«Strathmere, Sam.»

"Go!" Bartlet barked.

The secretary of magic nodded as he ran out of the room...

* * *

 _ **Strathmere in Upper Township (twelve miles southwest of Atlantic City), a half-hour later...**_

"There we go! All nice and safe now!"

A barely-conscious Yūdachi croaked as she felt the soft sand of a beach settle against her back. Much that her spinal cord was still intact, she barely could sense what was going on in her hip and right leg; her faeries were using their own abilities to cut the flow of pain into her mind while they also stemmed the bleeding thanks to the severing of the popliteal artery just below her knee. As the comforting feeling of the sea vanished from her skin, she then blinked as a hand grasped hers and held it close to her best friend's heart. As Hydra watched, a platoon's worth of the little creatures that inhabited the equipment of these shipgirls swarmed from under Fubuki's sailor uniform top to swarm over Yūdachi's legs, some disappearing into the folds of her own clothes. "My God...!" the native of Charlotte Amalie breathed out, shaking her head.

"Jen!"

The blonde, green-eyed hydrokinetic perked, then she looked over. "Dave!"

The thunder of horse's hooves made Fubuki look up...

...then she gaped in awe on seeing who just arrived. "The Wrangler...?!"

That made Yūdachi's eyes go wide before she looked over as a tall and broad-shouldered man in a red-and-silver bodysuit with a silver cowboy hat on his head of wavy short-cut blonde hair, his blue eyes under riding goggles and a friendly smile on his face, came over. "Whoo! That don't look good whatsoever!" the man born David Collins in San Antonio shortly before the beginning of World War One said as he shook his head on taking in the destroyer's injuries. "Need a tourniquet?!"

"It's alright, Collins-keibu," Fubuki assured the man known to his many fans in Texas and elsewhere as the Cosmic Cowboy, the _**Wrangler**_ , the leader of the Liberty Legion. "Yūdachi-chan's damage control crew is keeping the bleeding down."

That made the veteran of the Texas Rangers blink before he nodded. "Right! The little sprites pretty ladies like you need to use your weapons and equipment properly when you're chasing away those desperadoes who've forced people off the seas!" As Fubuki squawked in embarrassment while her cheeks turned as red as tomatoes thanks to that compliment the Texan law enforcement officer just gave her, he gazed out to sea, quickly spotting the battle many miles off-shore. "Shoot...!"

"Where's the patient?!"

Hydra's head snapped over. "Here, Doc!"

Running footsteps heralded the arrival of a pretty woman with chestnut hair and green eyes, dressed in a stylish two-tone green uniform with puffy sleeves and form-fitting slacks, a green cape slung around her shoulder. Much to Fubuki's wide-eyed shock, a silvery unicorn horn now projected from the middle of her forehead. As it dawned on her that they had just been joined by the Healer of the Legion, the _**Unicorn**_ , multiple _pops!_ echoed through the air as a swarm of house elves moved in with medical equipment, including a stretcher. "Get those clothes and gear off her!" the woman known in civilian life as Doctor Rebecca Brodnicki, one of the first women to train as a trauma surgeon when she graduated from Johns Hopkins University in her hometown of Baltimore, called out. "I assume the faeries in your crew are helping keep your friend alive, miss?"

"Hai, Sensei!" Fubuki said as she gazed in confusion at the head-mounted horn now on the Marylander's forehead.

Was that REALLY...?!

The Unicorn smirked as the Wrangler turned away out of respect for Yūdachi's modesty while the elves vanished the clothes and lifted off all the sea equipment from the wounded destroyer's body. "I'm a nimmib, young lady, just one generation removed from magical blood. I don't know how much our stories got out after the war ended, but I saved a wounded unicorn when I was out in the woods near Frederick one day." She then gazed down at the wary-eyed faeries, who were staring with apprehension at this being. "Relax," she soothed, instantly making the crews from both destroyers calm down as they gave her embarrassed looks. "Let me heal her wounds and re-grow her leg before you get her systems repaired, alright?"

The chief damage repairman from Yūdachi's crew considered that before she nodded in understanding. As a wide-eyed Fubuki watched, the Unicorn's horn glowed a brilliant silver before a bolt of energy lanced into the open wounds over her hip. The destroyer gasped as she felt that power flood the mesonium in her own blood to begin a rapid repair of the damaged tissue. The faeries all gave the healer a banzai cheer as they watched the skin regrow at speeds that no regular form of magical healing could equal. Within a minute, the right hip and the spinal column were as good as the day the fourth of the Shiratsuyu-class destroyers came through the summoning pool at Eta-jima. A croak of "Poi...!" escaped Yūdachi before she gazed wide-eyed at the healer. "A real _unicorn_...!" she moaned out before her eyes closed and she slipped into a fitful rest.

"Give her a sedative, Florence," the Unicorn ordered. "Plus bone and muscle replenishment potions as well."

"Yes, Mistress!" the senior elf said before she gazed sympathetically at the faeries, all of whom now seemed ready to repel boarders. "Yous be relaxing, goods faeries! Miss Yūdachi will feels pain still even when Mistress makes her leg whole. Ghost pain always comes with amputations and her bloods needed to make new bone and skin! This helps her sleeps!" At the chief damage repairman's understanding nod, Florence snapped her fingers to send a small vial's worth of dreamless sleep potion and a pain reliever right into Yūdachi's stomach, which made the destroyer shudder before a relieved sigh escaped her. Once that was done, more vials' worth of a better version of skeletal-growth and muscle repair potions were sent in.

"Kodachi-chan..." Fubuki whispered...

...then she tensed as her Type 33 radar picked up new arrivals. "Who...?!" she barked as she snapped up her "A" turret.

"Don't shoot, Lieutenant Fukushima! Seventh Cavalry Division!"

Hearing the name of the top formation of the Magical Corps of the United States Army from the European side of the Wars of Liberation, Fubuki relaxed herself. "Healers?!" the destroyer demanded as a small group of people approached.

"And a concerned mother! Rebecca!"

"Not now, Mother!" the Unicorn said as an older silver-haired version of her without the horn on the head moved to kneel beside her while another beam of healing energy lanced down at Yūdachi's severed knee. Said person was dressed in the operational camouflage pattern of the United States Army Combat Uniform, the formation patches of the Seventh Cavalry Division on the left upper arm, the unit patch of the 7th Medical Squadron on the right arm under the Stars and Stripes and a lieutenant colonel's oak leaf insignia on her chest epaulette. "I just need to get this going," she muttered as the shattered bones began to grow out, followed by the muscle, nerves and circulatory organs moving to reform the leg.

"Great Merlin! I NEVER got tired of seeing that back in the war!" a smirking elderly man with the insignia of a sergeant major on his uniform said as he reached over to squeeze Lieutenant Colonel Johanna Brodnicki's shoulder.

"You never gave up hope, Sensei?"

That was Fubuki, who was staring knowingly at the Unicorn's mother. "My daughter may have been born a nimmib, but she's still my child, Lieutenant," the elder Brodnicki stated with a twinkle in her green eyes. "Besides, given how desperate the Übermenschen became after President Lincoln made the Undying Lord see what he had been doing wrong all those years, I suspected they might have done something that would have forced Master William to resort to a desperate solution."

"Mesonium bomb," the Wrangler stated, gazing out to sea as he watched the battle end thanks to full broadsides from New Jersey and Yamato. "According to Doc Donaldson, the yield of that thing was about a billion tons of TNT."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"How big was that antimatter bomb the Earth Angel removed from Tomobiki when the aliens were forced off the planet, Lieutenant Fukushima?!" Sergeant Major Ernest Dane asked as he stared in wide-eyed horror at Fubuki.

"Five hundred megatons," the destroyer answered before she gazed at the Wrangler. "Five hundred MILLION tonnes of TNT."

The Texan law enforcement officer shuddered. "Damn...!"

"There we are...!"

Eyes locked on Yūdachi, who now had a fully whole right leg. As the faeries on her stomach all chanted banzai cheers while waving in thanks, the Unicorn groaned as she sat back on the sand. "Florence, a gown, please!"

"Yes, Mistress!"

With a snap of the fingers, Yūdachi was draped in a cute cotton hospital gown that covered her from collar to knee. As the Unicorn relaxed herself while her horn vanished, her mother squeezed her shoulders in support. «Last of them are gone, Dave,» the mental voice of the Sixth Sensor called out in people's minds, making everyone perk. «Miss Inazuma and Miss Hoel got some wounds on them that might need the Doc to look at them once she gets her breath back.»

"Right...!"

Drawing out his glowing lasso, the Cosmic Cowboy instantly formed a ghostly spirit-horse. "Go get those little ladies and bring them in!" the Wrangler said, making the horse whine before it leapt into the sky and raced east.

The magicals watched that happen, all shaking their heads in disbelief. "No magic," one of the other healers who came with LTC Brodnicki to the scene, Captain Jules Pierce, muttered. "How in Merlin's name does he DO that?!"

"When it's magic versus mesonium, mesonium usually always wins, Sensei."

That was Fubuki. "Much that it gives us a ton of headaches along the way, Lieutenant," SGM Dane breathed out.

"Amen to that," Johanna Brodnicki said with a sigh.

Her daughter gazed at her, then they embraced, earning them another chorus of banzai cheers from Yūdachi's faeries...

* * *

 _ **AtlantiCare Regional Medical Centre Atlantic City Campus, an hour later...**_

"Damn good work, Doctor Brodnicki. You do house calls for shipgirls?"

Amused laughter filled the recovery room that had been set aside for Yūdachi once the fourth of the Shiratsuyu-class destroyers had been brought to the site of Atlantic City's oldest hospital to rest up and be checked by personnel from Naval Station Norfolk before she was allowed to return to Japan. Leading the current team who had taken over the hospital was one of several metahuman healers who had trained at Dean Raeburn's special school for their kind at her home in Clayhurst, just east of Fort Saint John in northeast British Columbia close to the border with Alberta. Commander Kylie Stornoway of the United States Navy Medical Corps normally worked at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre outside Washington. Right now, the native of Rochester in New York was using her own psychokinetic powers to ensure all the repairs that Rebecca Brodnicki did for Yūdachi's human body had been done before repairs to her equipment could commence.

"Fortunately, they were human enough to allow my powers to heal them, plus magical enough to allow the potions to work on them," Brodnicki stated as she gazed at the sleeping destroyer. Thanks to the evacuation of Atlantic City's population inland well away from the shores of the bays separating the barrier islands from mainland New Jersey, the hospital itself had been effectively shut down, though kept ready to be reactivated when military personnel came in to deal with issues. Despite the seven decades since she had worked at the emergency ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, the native of the magical community in Frederick was still able to recognize a lot of things being used in no-maj medicine. "How is this possible, Doctor Stornoway? Yes, Lieutenant Hashimoto is fully flesh-and-blood human, but how could something so alive be created from _**nothingness**_?! Even magic has certain accepted laws that demand there has to be something given to create life!"

Stornoway sighed. "You know of the concept of tsukumogami?"

That made the Marylander blink. "'Tool spirit'. Divine spirits that appear in household objects that are at least a hundred years old according to Shintō beliefs. But save for real old ships like the _Constitution_...!"

"It's a similar concept that was first devised by Master Hosan years ago," the upstate New Yorker explained. "In essence, a ship-spirit forms from her builders' and crews' belief in what the ship was built to do and what she did during her service time. A Meridiana alumnus named Negi Springfield discovered the original research notes Master Hosan wrote about it when things went totally insane five years ago, then devised a summoning ritual based on Shintō belief to bring back the Kongō sisters before Tōkyō was destroyed. The Canadians got hold of it since General Raeburn had copies of the notes, then began summoning right afterwards, sharing that knowledge with anyone who asked, even us. It snowballed from there."

"What of the spiritual aspects of this, Doctor?" a strange man's voice then asked from nearby. "You can't constantly punch holes from the mortal realm into something touched by the Divine and not expect potential consequences."

Both doctors gazed on William Costilow, who had been standing off to one side while he used his own cosmic-level psychokinesis to scan the sleeping Yūdachi. "There have been issues, sir," Stornoway stated. "I'm not really briefed on those things, but there have been incidents in Japan where various types of 'yōkai' have appeared to either cause trouble or help stop the trouble. I know the main base at Yokosuka is protected by a multi-centenarian kitsune and a yuki-onna, with a tengu protecting our own base at Sasebo." At Costilow's wide-eyed look, Stornoway shrugged. "It hasn't really spilled into the normal world thanks to both those shipgirls who are specially attuned to such things and the magicals..."

One of Costilow's black eyebrows arched as his almost black eyes focused on the surgeon. "And the Great Beasts?"

Stornoway's eyes went wide. "Rittmeister von Taserich's allies from the time the Old Ones were driven off Earth, you mean?" she asked. At his grim nod, she sighed. "I know Túndra blessed that long-missing aircraft carrier that was found recently in Siberia, but as for others..." She shook her head. "I can't say, Mister Costilow. Information like that is kept secret from the general public here in America to prevent conservatives in MACUSA from butting in to make a mess of things..."

The raven-haired former bootlegger rolled his eyes. "Naturally..."

"Hey, Bill!"

Everyone turned as David Collins peeked into the room. Like his friends in the Legion, everyone had shifted to civilian clothes, which were dated to modern eyes but still quite respectable in an old-fashioned way. "Yeah, Dave?"

"Need to talk to you. You, too, Doc."

Costilow and Brodnicki nodded before they followed the Texan out, heading down the hallway to a nearby lounge. Arriving there, they stopped, grinning on seeing a gushing group of destroyers — having been joined by Yūdachi's sisters, Mutsuki and a still-pale Kisaragi, who had been at their bases when the news came of the attack, then were transported here with the help of Long Beach — gathered around Fubuki, who was holding Bryce Carruthers' beautiful claymore aloft so all of them could touch the incredible blade that had won the reputation of being able to cleave mountains in half when welded by the Human Rocket. Seated nearby was the banker in question, who was smiling in amusement at the shipgirls' antics with his weapon. Valerie Cesare and Jennifer Kampas sat to either side of him. Watching over the destroyers as they passed their hands over that cosmically-enhanced blade was Tenryū; Tatsuta was seated nearby sipping some welcome tea.

"This has been in your family for HOW long now, Bryce?" Tenryū then asked.

"Since my great-grandfather migrated to Philadelphia from Dumfriesshire just before the Revolution, Tamiyo," the native of North Chicago answered, he giving her a smile that made the tomboyish cruiser blush. "The blade itself was hardened after I awoke to my powers and both Bill here and Don Hammond got hold of it to have it enhanced with mesonium taken from my blood. Magicals respect the whole concept of blood-bonding a weapon or tool to make sure no one else can make use of it, especially against its true owner. The chief auror of the Chicago office of the DMLE at the time was a childhood playmate of mine before he got dragged off to Seven Hills and his parents were made to forget he ever was their son."

" _ **WHAT?!**_ " all the destroyers screeched in unison.

"Why would they do such a horrible thing?" Yamakaze hissed out.

"It was the law at the time, Yaeko-chan."

That was Fubuki. "Well, to paraphrase Akemi-chan, that was a shitty law!" Suzukaze snarled. "European magicals don't do that sort of thing! Canadian magicals all use that Fidelius charm to keep the secret! Why do THAT?!"

Laughter filled the room. "Yeah, you can tell they're all sailors, alright," Collins said as he sat down at a chair while Costilow placed himself off to one corner and Brodnicki went to the small tea service to make something for herself. As Fubuki handed the sword to a wide-eyed Hibiki, the Texan added, "You kids ever hear tell of Rappaport's Law by any chance?"

All the destroyers nodded. "Yeah! It was passed in 1790 after some rhabdophobic jerk — who happened to be magically descent — tricked Admiral Harlan's grandma into trying to expose magicals to the normals!" Shigure stated. "It put really strict rules on contacts between magicals and normal people to uphold Article II of the Magical Constitution. The federal government at the time under President Washington was all for it to keep the International Confederation from making too much noise while people got things really going for Americans and the British up north moved to re-establish their Ministry of Magical Affairs in Québec City. It pretty much kept the magical peace in this country ever since that time."

Costilow snorted. "Who on Earth taught you THAT?!"

"Bill!" Collins snapped.

As the destroyers blinked, Carruthers sighed. "You're almost right there, Shōko. What people sometimes — at least back in OUR time — didn't want to admit was that America began developing its own pureblood elite because of this law. Because contact between magicals and non-magicals was so strictly enforced, people began to inbreed among each other, becoming 'stalebloods', to use Major Raeburn's term for it. No-maj-borns like my friend were always made to separate themselves from normal relatives during that time. While it was unofficial for the longest time, it became law in 1914 when President Wilson tried to have Deputy Secretary Picquery drummed out of office. All because she was _**black**_." As the destroyers all gaped in shock, the banker shook his head. "From that time on, children who developed magic while being part of normal families were literally KIDNAPPED off the streets and made to attend school, their parents made to forget they ever had children in the first place. That wasn't stopped until President Roosevelt issued Magical Executive Order 9010 in 1942 to basically bring the Department of Magic back into line and force them to accept that there's only one chief executive in this land."

"That whole 'magical president' nonsense, you mean," Ikazuchi said with a scowl.

"The very same thing, Ikue."

"Did your friend ever get back with his parents, Sensei?" Fubuki asked.

Carruthers shrugged. "I honestly don't know, Fujiko. I hope he did. I haven't had a chance to get caught up with my friends; I just got back home three hours ago after Miss Suzumiya freed us from that space warp and I had to come here to help Val here deal with those Abyssals that hurt Kodachi." He sighed. "Yeah, I hope he did. After all, people like Regina Mitchell fought tooth and nail to reassert the rights of no-maj-borns to live their lives as they wanted to live them under the basic guidelines of the Magical Constitution, which Rappaport's Law violated in a lot of ways. Damn shame she died..."

"She's alive!" Mutsuki declared.

That made the members of the Liberty Legion blink. "She's alive?!" Costilow asked as the others exchanged surprised looks.

"Hai! Rittmeister von Taserich saved them thanks to the Avalonians and the Niphentaxians who were in Europe at the time," Fubuki answered before she perked. "Oh, no! You don't know about the Avalonians, do you?!"

"Who are they?" Cesare wondered.

"That's a bit of a story, Valerie," Tenryū warned...

* * *

 _ **Harry's Oyster Bar, one block south from the AtlantiCare Regional Medical Centre, that moment...**_

"They can't be serious!"

"They are, Kevin," the senior aide to the elder congressman representing New Jersey's magicals in the Magical Congress, John Shaw, hissed out. "The _**Liberty Legion**_ back?! With _**Costilow**_ and _**Walker**_ with them?! There's no way in HELL that will be tolerated by the Congress, Chief Auror! We need them to back away and stay as far from the shipgirls as possible!"

"May I ask why?!" Kevin Abernathy demanded. A middle-aged man, he was the grandson of the supervisor to the Goldstein sisters Tina (now Mrs. Newt Scamander) and Queenie (now Mrs. Jacob Kowalski), two of the heroes of the incident concerning Clarence Barebone in 1926 that nearly saw all of America's magicals exposed long before the first generation of mystery men could have saved them. His grandfather Joseph had also been involved in the incident on Independence Day in 1938 when many of North America's magicals learned of the full power of a geologist's daughter from a then-suburb of Québec City named Heather Thompkins, the woman who became a hero to magicals for her reform of the International Confederation of Wizards after the Wars of Liberation; another such veteran of that incident was Valerie Cesare. "The shipgirls are protected by Magical Executive Order, both America's girls and foreign girls! You can't touch them! All American shipgirls know how to trigger the necessary loyalty magic that would make anyone turn away from harming them or theirs, just like Commander Stevens did to protect her fiancée from those aurors! The news of the Liberty Legion's return is getting out, for Merlin's sake! Jane Kesler's at Kitsap right now thanks to Commander Stevens and CNN's got the story! In addition to that, those pilots in those F-16s that flew today will report what they saw to their superiors, with press releases to follow! You're going to try to go to the _**White House**_ , John?!" He shook his head. "There's already been ONE civil war fought in this land because there are people who can't see beyond their own noses! You want to start another one?! Doing ANYTHING against those people after what they did at the end of the Wars of Liberation will blow away what little protections we have left! Leave it be!"

"Hey, Kev! What's with the square here?!"

Shaw gargled on feeling waves of incredible magic flow past him, then he turned...

...before he found himself staring at a certain nuclear-powered light cruiser from the 1960s, who had been accompanied to this meeting by a certain aircraft carrier from Japan. "Hello, Cass," Abernathy said as he nodded politely to Long Beach, then he gazed on Yonaga. "Captain Itō, a pleasure. Welcome to New Jersey. Keeping an eye on the little ones?"

"As necessary, especially when Naomi-chan here warned me there was someone being very foolish," the fifth of the Yamato-class stated as she glared intently at Shaw, who cringed at that huntsman's look from one blessed by one of the Great Beasts. The seventh carrier of Operation Z then gazed on Abernathy. "Naomi-chan tells me your late grandfather Joseph was involved in the incident where Admiral Thompkins drew first blood against the Übermenschen in 1938. Correct?"

Abernathy smiled, nodding in acknowledgement. "Indeed he was, Captain. My grandfather owed a magical Life Debt to the Supreme Mugwump Emeritus because of that, which he repaid by joining the Seventh Cavalry Division to help liberate Europe from Grindelwald. He topped out as a full colonel, ending the war as commanding officer of the 73rd Cavalry Regiment."

Yonaga nodded in admiration and appreciation. "And why is this young fellow forcing you to defy Magical Executive Order 9002?" she then asked, making Shaw awk. "You did not know of such an order, Mister Shaw?"

"He does, Big Y," Long Beach said. "I even took him to the Bureau of Mysteries in Manhattan to show him the text of the order. He...!" She then blinked as she sensed something. "Ah, man! Hold still, dude!"

Shaw blinked...

...then he gargled as one of the flowers on the cruiser's foreheads glowed, causing him to shudder as a massive flood of energy poured down on him from Long Beach. Abernathy's mage-sight clicked in as he sensed the cruiser using her power to suck out what appeared to be some sort of compulsion curse set over his old housemate from Ilvermorny; both were alumni of Pukwudgie. Shaw then gasped in relief as something that seemed to squeeze his heart then let go, he nearly passing out. Yonaga's firm hand grabbed him and held him aloft as Shaw panted several times. "Th-thanks, C-c-Cass...!"

"Shit!" Abernathy snarled before he shook his head. "Mister Shaw, I'm taking you under custody. Captain Itō, Commander Haight-Ashbury, much that I have no jurisdiction over either of you, can I ask for your help?"

"Against the magical squares playing around with curses to hurt all the righteous people? No problem, Kev," Long Beach said as she patted Shaw's shoulder in reassurance. "C'mon, John! We'll go visit Mama Q's pad!"

A phoenix then flared into the scene over their heads...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

For those not be familiar with the cosmic situation around Earth in the universe of _The Senior Year_ , you will need to read over a fact file I created denoting names of the various races that come from the original _Yatsura_ manga/anime series and what was created for _TSY_. Said file is not in the _TSY_ story archived here at the website, but can be found at the RAAC archives; just Google the full group Usenet name and look under the _Urusei Yatsura_ fanfic listing title in _The Senior Year_ index. Some changes have been made from when that file was first written in recent stories, but most of it is pretty accurate even now.

As an aside, **Nassur** was Mike Smith's main character in _TSY_. He first appeared in the second story, "Return of Memory".

The members of the **Liberty Legion** and the **Soldiers of Freedom** introduced here are based on characters created by one of the first truly fan-driven storylines to be published by a mainstream comic company, DC Comics' _**Dial "H" For Hero**_. These characters here are based on the 1980s incarnation of the series, first published in a special insert in _Legion of Super-Heroes_ #272 (February 1981), then ran in _Adventure Comics_ #479-490, then continued in _New Adventures of Superboy_ #28-49, then finally wrapped up in _DC Comics Presents_ #44 when the main protagonists of the story, **Christopher King** and **Victoria Grant** , had an encounter with Superman. The main creators of the second series (the first appeared in the 1960s in the _House of Mystery_ anthology series) was writer **Marv Wolfman** (co-creator of the _New Teen Titans_ ) and artist **Carmine Infantino**.

Unlike that series, members of the Legion and the Soldiers are their own people and not just mere hour-long super-powered personas assumed by Christopher or Victoria via their "H" Dials, devices that allowed them to acquire such abilities at random. Real names, home towns and stories of the people listed here are my creation. As for the proper credits of who created whom:

 **Mister Mystical** ( **William Costilow** ) — created by Jeff Anderson  
 **The Weaver** ( **Valerie Sanipass** ) — created by Nancy Mayberry  
 **Hypno-Girl** ( **Jane Kesler** ) — created by Elliott Buchholz  
 **Ultra Girl** ( **Valerie Cesare** ) — created by Michael Steckman  
 **Cardinal** ( **Jessica Parkin** ) — created by Margaret Spiezio  
 **Sixth Sensor** ( **Jeffrey Wilcox** ) — created by Lynn Thilcult  
 **Starflare** ( **Bryce Carruthers** ) — created by Terrence Mohammed  
 **Hydra** ( **Jennifer Kampas** ) — created by Alicia Shing  
 **The Wrangler** ( **David Collins** ) — created by Tom Reed  
 **The Unicorn** ( **Dr. Rebecca Brodnicki** ) — created by Kyla M. Jones  
 **Captain Electron** ( **Dr. Neil Donaldson** ) — created by Stephen De Stefano  
 **The Colour Commando** ( **CPT Donald Hamilton, USA** ) — created by James McClernan

 **David "Trip" McMann** is a character from _Belated Battleship_. A thanks as always to theJMPer for his creation.

Translation list: **Die Glückliche Zeit** — The Happy Time; **Keibu** — Police inspector.

Note that in American Army cavalry terminology, a **squadron** is a battalion-sized formation.

Shipgirls mentioned in this part:

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Yamakaze** — Hamamoto Yaeko  
 **THG Suzukaze** — Hamamoto Suzuko  
 **THG Shigure —** Hamamoto Shōko


	21. Kaga Makes A Confession

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Atlantic City, AtlantiCare Regional Medical Centre, Wednesday 24 May, two hours before supper...**_

"All of you, welcome back. America is blessed to have you here again!"

"It's good to be back, Mister President."

Magical cameras instantly went off as Josiah Bartlet shook the hand of David Collins, once more in the colourful costume of the Cosmic Cowboy. As the shipgirls — including a slowly-recovering Yūdachi now in a wheelchair — all whooped at the sight of the leader of the Liberty Legion shaking the hand of the leader of the free world, applause broke out from the many people who were gathered there to see this event. Including with them was a certain British arch-mage who led the magical version of the United Nations, who had been joined by his old friend from Russia and his would-be opponent from Japan, not to mention the American magical ambassador to the International Confederation of Wizards. Standing close by was a smiling reporter with glasses representing Britain's chief magical newspaper. "Aren't you concerned, Madame Ambassador?" Rita Skeeter asked Seraphina Picquery, earning her a surprised look from the native of Savannah. "Mister Costilow's return?"

People focused on William Costilow, who was dressed in his red-black-and-gold battle uniform as the Cosmic Arch-Mage (as non-magicals had often called Mister Mystical in all the press releases about him), his red-and-black helmet tucked under one arm; given that the public identities of all the members of the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom came out into the open sometime after the Battle of Toronto in 1945, it was ridiculous to appear masked before the Chief Executive himself. "Only certain long-term members of the Magical Congress and those who worked for the Department of Magic at the time we had out disagreements with Master William still resent him for what he is and how he came to be the way he is, Miss Skeeter," the former "magical president" from the 1920s stated, grateful that Albus Dumbledore persuaded the "queen of the quills" to not use her Quick-Quotes Quill while doing interviews at this reunion. "The true nature of the appearance of metahumans confused not just us in the Magical Congress and the Department of Magic, but magicals in many other countries as well, especially those nations with high amounts of mesonium deposits in the soil like Canada and the then-Soviet Union." She gazed on Svetlána Múrometsa in emphasis before she turned back to the Ravenclaw alumnus from Liverpool. "Instead of showing compassion for the struggles they endured to master their powers when there was no textbook or school of training to help them — in the same way Heather Thompkins was forced to learn her magic — we should have been in there right away to help them as soon as they were identified. Not only just to uphold the Statute of Secrecy, but to help them develop as their own community in the overall family of Man. It wasn't until the Protector of All Life established her school in 1954 that such could happen. I'm pleased to note that my counterpart's successors in Québec City threw their support behind that project."

"We've heard rumours the Protector's school has now been fully militarized," a reporter from the _New York Ghost_ then warned.

"I can comment on that, Mister White."

People turned as Josiah Bartlet came over to join them, leaning on his cane. "May I offer my personal congratulations at this wonderful development, Your Excellency," Dumbledore then said as he shook the president's hand.

"Oh, we should be congratulating and thanking Miss Suzumiya, Professor Dumbledore. And Rittmeister von Taserich as well as he was the one who sensed what had happened," the former governor of New Hampshire said. Much to the magical leaders' amusement and the shipgirls' approval, the member of the Liberty Legion native to the Granite State, Concord-born John Davis, also known as the Master of Cosmic Music _**Trouble Clef**_ , stayed close to his fellow New Hampshire native, much to the private relief of the chief of the president's Secret Service detail, Ron Butterfield. "I'm sure we can get Negako to pass on our thanks to Haruhi when she gets the chance. I'm sure she could also pass on our thanks to the Rittmeister."

"What of the Soldiers of Liberty, Mister President?" the _Ghost_ reporter, Jim White, then asked. "The Canadian magical embassy in Manhattan hasn't got any alerts from the Ministry of Magical Affairs concerning them at all."

"Actually, Mister White, I can answer that," Bartlet said. "Prime Minister Trudeau got the alert from elements of the Specialized Warfare Regiment two hours ago about the return of Doctor Donaldson and his friends back to their homes across Canada. I'm sure right now, that group is being gathered either in Ottawa or Dundurn to commence the debriefing process."

"Doesn't that bother you, Mister President?" the reporter for the _Chicago Coven_ , Samuel Ellis, then asked. "The whole idea of militarizing no-maj-born metahumans into a serving unit in any country's armed forces, even Canada's?"

"I thought it was against the Specialized Warfare Treaty," Skeeter noted.

"It is not when a state of war is declared and the signatory parties agree to allow our Canadian friends to do such, Rita. Which they did," Dumbledore stated. "It's no different than Governor General Johnston's declaration of war mobilizing the Royal Canadian Foresters, the Navy Magical Service and the Seventh Magical Wing; much less His Excellency here using his executive power to mobilize the Magical Corps of the Army or the Magical Wing of the Marine Corps. I also add that all other countries who have sent metahuman students to the School of Specialized Warfare in Clayhurst to be taught by Headmaster Sampson and his fine staff have the right to do the very same thing under that same treaty. While I have no idea about other such formations, I'm sure they're out there performing good work. I'm sure when he feels it right, the President will make his intentions concerning the current generation of American metahumans known." He gazed on Bartlet, getting a nod.

"Well, if he wants us back on duty, we're back on duty," John Davis stated, which made all the reporters gaze expectantly on the amateur composer; before the start of the Second World War, the audio-telekinetic with the power to transform noise into physical matter had been studying classical composition at Granite State College in his hometown, enduring his sophomore year when Pearl Harbour was attacked. "The house elves who watched over my family home in Concord told me how much the DMLE in America and Britain, to say anything of 'W' Division in Canada and the other magical law enforcement groups elsewhere, took real bad hits because of those things these little girls have to fight now." He then sadly gazed on the large bunch of destroyers in the main reception hall of the hospital, who were now intermingling with his teammates. "I can see why a lot of people have problems with what appear to be little _**kids**_ of all things going out to fight these demons."

"You're not the only one who has such an issue, Iván Artúrovich," Múrometsa said as she gave the younger-looking destroyers a sympathetic look. "Indeed, whatever nekul'túrnyje sprájty forced the dévochki-korábl' to come back as THAT...!"

"They came back and are capable of fighting, Svetá," Dumbledore advised. "Let's be grateful for that at least."

Múrometsa gave him a slightly disapproving look...

"Hey, everyone!"

People's heads snapped around...

"Harry-chan!" all the Japanese destroyers called out.

"Harry! Why didn't you all go back to the castle?!" Dumbledore demanded.

Harry Potter blushed as he and his classmates all came to a stop, many of the magically-born gaping at the sea of incredible costumes standing before them. "I heard Kodachi-nēchan was hurt fighting that cruiser squadron that tried to attack Atlantic City, Professor!" the Boy Who Lived said as he gave Yūdachi a concerned look, earning him a blush from the fourth of the Shiratsuyu-class destroyers in return. "Who healed her?! Did one of the repair ships from Norfolk come by?!"

"That wasn't necessary, Harry-chan," Shiratsuyu herself said as she waved to the beautiful unicorn-blessed healer in the green costume with cape standing nearby. "Brodnicki-sensei here made Kodachi as good as the day she was summoned."

Harry blinked, then he turned to stare in awe at the Healer of the Legion before he straightened himself, then bowed. "Sensei, I am in your debt for saving my dear friend and adopted elder sister from sinking and being corrupted by the Abyss."

That made the Unicorn perk. "Magical Life Debt?!"

As the reporters all gasped on hearing that, Mister Mystical focused his eyes and powers on the brave young boy with the strange sig rune scar healing over his right eye. He blinked before he sighed. "You should have told him, Kodachi," he said as he gazed on Yūdachi, then he focused on Fubuki and Mutsuki. "The debt has to be acknowledged; his magic recognized such even if he didn't know. He deserves to know, girls. It's your responsibility to make him understand, girls."

"Harry owes a LIFE DEBT to _**shipgirls**_...?!" Skeeter hissed out.

"The teke teke...?"

That was a white-faced Fubuki. "What teke teke...?" Harry demanded...before he blinked as memory came back to him. "That girl that I saw one night at the Naval District shortly after Mum adopted me...?! She was really...?!"

"Her name was Atsuyama Mariko, Harry-chan," Fubuki said in a quiet voice. "She was killed when she was shoved off the platform at a subway station near the Naval District during the panic that befell everyone at the Battle of Tōkyō Bay when a train came by. When Kodachi-chan and I interrogated her after Mutsuko-chan got you clear, we found out she was trying to attack you because she blamed us for not protecting her." She shook her head. "Just another causality in this sick war."

"His spirit has to be purged of the Life Debt's influence," Mister Mystical warned, which made the magicals all gape at him save Yomigawa Tsukiko, who was grimly nodding in understanding. "Could you help him, Amy?"

"I believe so."

People turned as the effective representative of both the Beehive State and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints came up to kneel before Harry. Before he could ask what was happening, Amy Purtell shook her head as a scowl crossed her face. "Yeah, there are a few things from other dimensions that seem to want to latch on you, young man." As people gaped at her, the Mistress of All Realities, _**Dimension Girl**_ , raised her hand, revealing mist-like energy appearing around Harry. "A lot of it is benign, though...except..." She then reached out towards Harry, making him gasp and the destroyers all cry out...

...especially when the Utahan religious genealogist's hand literally DISAPPEARED into one bank of mist close to Harry's heart, making the students watching this scream in shock and horror at such a sight...

...before they all gasped as Dimension Girl pulled out a ghostly creature appearing to be a girl of about fifteen years of age, with half her body from the area of her waist down totally gone, replaced by some dark fog. "Merlin! What's THAT?!" Draco Malfoy exclaimed as many of Harry's classmates instantly drew out their wands, ready to cast shields in case this thing got clear of Dimension Girl and tried to attack either their friend or their friend's many spiritual big sisters.

Mister Mystical whispered something in a tongue no magical present could recognize, sending a bolt of black energy right into the ghostly creature's head. She shrieked out in agony as the energy literally shredded her soul, causing her "body" to shimmer for a second before it vanished totally from view. Once that happened, people relaxed. "What the HELL was that?!" one of the Secret Service agents who had come with Bartlet to this meeting, Mike McCracken, demanded.

"A spirit-shredding attack, Special Agent," the native of Salem replied, clearly not bothered by what he just did. "It's based on the soulsword concept Major Raeburn learned from her master that's normally practised by that thing that killed off the last of the Black Dragon Society's fighters after Emperor Shōwa called it a day finally in 1945. Even if young Fujiko and Kodachi here did their best to ensure that thing didn't hurt the young man here, it had latched onto Harry for vengeance."

"To hurt us, you mean?!" Hibiki demanded.

"Exactly, Himeko," Mister Mystical stated. "Dave, I'm going to where these kids are based and I'm giving those bases a damned good look-over. Much that I know there are experts there, since there are American shipgirls present..."

"Do it," the Wrangler stated. "Don't go alone, alright?"

As the others in the Legion nodded, the destroyers all exchanged shocked looks...

* * *

 _ **Somewhere in South Africa, that moment (local time: An hour after nightfall)...**_

"Alive...?"

"Ja, my Heer. It turns out that Heer Costilow discovered that the last of the Übermenschen had created a highly explosive mesonium bomb and were prepared to destroy the lower Great Lakes basin in vengeance over the many defeats handed to them by the War Hawks, also seeking the destruction of the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom. Heer Costilow drew on the mesonium that granted powers to his friends to create a space warp to force the bomb away from Toronto, which made the enemy attempt a premature detonation. They were forced to follow him into the bubble to keep it stable, which froze them beyond space-time until Ritmeester van Taserich discovered what happened, then asked Suzumiya Haruhi to free them."

Hearing that, the middle-aged yet very well-fit silver-haired man with the almost black eyes of an experienced tracker smirked. He was now standing in the living room of his beautiful country mansion which had been expertly hidden from all attempts at locating it by any means possible, either normal or magical. The many animal heads and other curiosities of decades out in the field hunting everything imaginable hung on the walls around him. "Since I did not hear any warnings of the onset of nuclear winter like what befell the dinosaurs, I assume Dame Suzumiya disposed of the bomb and those misguided lunatics who tried to slaughter so many innocent bystanders in their attempt at honouring their late 'Führer'."

"Indeed, my Heer," the smiling blonde woman with the ice blue eyes said as she bowed her head to her current employer and rescuer; Cora Baard had been one of the first Terran-form Avalonians to be freed of Niphentaxian enslavement, many months before Moroboshi Negako began her brutal worldwide sweep to remove the observers of that world from Earth in the wake of the Tag Race with the assistance of Earth's considerable population of adopted Yizibajohei. Of course, Cora and her sisters had been happy to help destroy the observation stations in range of their current employer's home, gaining vengeance for the years they suffered thanks to indifferent "masters" who had fallen like wheat before their employer's weapons and skills. "According to the Elder Mother in Toronto, Dame Suzumiya teleported the bomb and the surviving Übermenschen into space at the orbit of Jupiter. There, according to the chief of the Galactic Federation's observation team currently orbiting that planet, an asteroid-firing cannon had been placed by the Urusian Imperial Round in hopes of 'punishing' all Terrans for their 'defiance' of their 'betters' because of the issue between the Liberator and the 'Goddess'. Fortunately, the bomb went off, killing the last of that group and destroying the cannon. Presently, Hunter Commander Nassur is making a damning report not just to President Lana of Uru but to Crown Princess Lupica on Tofunokoibito. I'm sure that Lady Chancellor Nakkyek will get a report as well from the Hunter Commander, which will make things difficult for the members of the Imperial Round in the future."

A snort escaped the veteran hunter and tracker who had been one of the first metahumans of the modern era to use his skills for more personal gain than doing "volunteer public service" as many of those bleeding hearts who later formed the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom had done before the Second World War compelled them to serve their nations as specialized warfare warriors against the lunatics poisoned by ebony mesonium in a mad attempt at matching power for power. While he had been something of a white nationalist back in more ignorant days, Johannes Heribald didn't see himself as a monster. As one of the top-paid mercenaries active on Earth for the past eight decades, the man known more commonly to the general public as the Dark Ranger of the Savannah, the _**Wildebeest**_ , had been busy. Paid top dollar for his work, which spanned from hunting the most exotic game imaginable for collectors worldwide to actual assassination missions as requested by governments when they felt their own special forces couldn't do the trick, the native of Bloemfontein in the old Orange Free State had been worth every cent, especially since Heribald always loved to pit his own skills against his targets.

And they were considerable...

"They consider themselves more 'civilized' than we?" the tracker said with a sneered smirk as he sipped the beautiful peach brandy his new Avalonian staff had personally prepared for his enjoyment. Taking delight in the sharp yet dry taste, which had been perfected millennia before on a now-dead planet thousands of light-years from Earth, Heribald shook his head. "Even the Vosians. Not that I would disparage this Nassur fellow, of course. His willingness to defy his 'supreme leader' like that after that senseless massacre at Colony Seventy-one..." He shook his head again. "Why in God's name do they _**number**_ their colony planets? Names give colonies more character in the end!" he rhetorically asked before sighing, then he sipped his drink. "And now their ancient republic is caught in a civil war. And these Urusians? Such a reckless lot if what Negako told me of them months ago is true. Inventing things that have no real place in this existence, especially in the hands of children like your late masters' 'goddess'." He shook his head once more. "It is a pity that the Men In Black no longer exist as an active group. I would have gladly taken a job to remove that brat from this world and spared Negako all the trouble in the end."

"With the presence of the adopted Yizibajohei on Earth, I doubt that even Ōgi would have dared try to stop you, my Heer," Cora stated before she took a deep breath. "My Heer, you would wish to know of Dame Brown."

That made the hunter perk. "Mary Josephine is alive and well?"

"Ja, my Heer. She is now in Atlantic City with the remainder of the Legion, having gone there to meet with President Bartlet. The magical media are there now: _Daily Prophet_ , _New York Ghost_ , _Chicago Coven_ and several other papers."

An amused chuckle escaped Heribald. "The _Daily Prophet_? Ah! Professor Dumbledore is there, you mean."

"As is Fregatkaptein Yamamoto's child."

"This 'boy who lived', you mean?"

"Ja, my Heer."

A smirk crossed Heribald's face. He often had a contentious relationship with the South African Ministry of Magic over the years, especially when it came to the times magical creatures had crossed into the Wildebeest's gun sights. Thanks to the "loyalty stone" system which had been placed over the future republic's territory when the British took it over from the Dutch after the Napoleonic Wars, most of the magical lore of the native tribes had been lost and the country's wizarding population had become almost a clone of the United Kingdom's. Such had been maintained even after South Africa became self-governing in 1910; unlike Canada and Australia, the great union at the bottom of the Dark Continent didn't possess the exotic magical and metaphysical threats either of the other dominions possessed. Because of that, the Wildebeest became the first non-North American metahuman of any stripe to attract magical attention when he first became known in the early 1930s. Attempts by aurors to capture and "de-power" him failed multiple times, which made him as feared among those fools as Gellert Grindelwald himself, even if the Dark Lord of Europe had never come so far south in pursuit of his "greater good".

Thanks to the efforts of Grindelwald's valiant warrior witch brigade, South Africa was forever freed of London's magical influence in 1942. Once they understood the true extent of what had been unleashed on them, the Minister for Magic hired the Wildebeest to kill British pureblood leaders who had commercial interests in Africa. That had been a well-paying job, earning Heribald the Grand Cross of Zikali in 1945 after the war ended, much to the helpless outrage of surviving lords of the "mother Wizengamot" who felt it their "duty" to "civilize" the magical "savages" regardless of their skin colour. Even more, the ease by which Heribald had been able to sneak into magical mansions to do his work so stunned European wand magicals that they elected to retreat further into their enclaves and leave the metahumans who had survived that damned war alone, even if their native countries wouldn't properly establish "specialized warfare" personnel until well into the early years of the Cold War.

Yet he himself hadn't survived that war unscathed.

In many ways, the Dark Ranger of the Savannah had something painfully in common with the Hunter of the Mi'kmaq.

Johannes Heribald and Martin Larsden, both expert trackers and killers, had fallen in love with "civilian" metas who donned beautiful uniforms to fight the good fight and defend those who couldn't defend themselves from all sorts of threats.

Both men had lost their beloveds at the Battle of Toronto.

Oh, had Heribald ever ENJOYED hunting down escaped Nazis after that war.

Even if none of them had been involved in the creation of those monsters that had taken poor Mary Josephine "Mary-Jo" Brown from him, the Wildebeest had been quite happy to make those racist fools understand in the last moments of their lives that their poisonous beliefs no longer had a place in a world that was becoming more complex by the day, especially in the wake of the end of World War Two and the invention of things like the atomic bomb and computers.

And now...

To know the farmer from rural Alabama who had become the Angel of the Heart of Dixie, _**Ariel**_ , survived that battle...!

"You can arrange for transport, Cora?"

"Of course, my Heer," Cora affirmed with a delighted smile...

* * *

 _ **Atlantic City, the Cesare mansion on the Boardwalk, suppertime...**_

"Yous all eats goods! Mistress will be most upsets if you don'ts!"

The crowd of destroyers all chuckled in embarrassment before they proceeded to do what the chief elf serving Valerie Cesare just ordered them to do. After the interviews with magical newspapers had been done at the AtlantiCare Regional Medical Centre, normal reporters got the chance to visit and meet with the Liberty Legion and get some choice interviews. Of course, anyone who was magical and subject still to the Statute of Secrecy had been allowed to get clear before anyone who wasn't in on that secret arrived; Albus Dumbledore had ensured that Harry Potter and his friends would be transported by phoenix back to Hogwarts for a late bedtime while Yomigawa Tsukiko, Svetlána Múrometsa and Seraphina Picquery were transported back to their places of work with the help of some friends of the British arch-mage's phoenix familiar, Fawkes. Once the President and his advisors managed to board a new version of Marine One — it was a Dynajet tilt-jet transport that had been built by Avalonian-Americans after the Niphentaxians had been cleared out of the States and was fitted with all the defences necessary to keep the Chief Executive safe — everyone had come down to the Cesare mansion to get some food into them. Naturally, all the elves that had been purchased by no-maj-born admirers of the Legion during the Wars of Liberation had flocked to the beautiful townhouse to make sure their masters were fed, along with their pretty sea angel guests.

Watching the destroyers as they all chowed down, one of the two battleships, one aircraft carrier and two light cruisers who deployed to the shores off New Jersey to deal with that one cruiser squadron could only smirk. "It's a pity we couldn't get a hold of a ton of these little guys to help feed us," the namesake of the Golden State herself mused as she sipped an old-fashioned milkshake. "Yeah, Jane's elves sure help out at Kitsap and all that, but they're hers..."

"I'm sure we could persuade some of our Canadian friends to help out, Kathy-san," Tatsuta mused as she sipped her tea. "Much that certain elements of magical society can be quite bothersome at times when it comes to that useless statute of theirs, others are waking up to the truth and moving to help out in whatever way they can. Even here in America, despite all the problems that certain elements of the magical government throw up from time to time. Like with Ida-san's fiancée."

Jersey snarled on hearing that as Enterprise and Tenryū shook their heads. The carrier then blinked before she looked outside onto the porch, where Yamato was standing, gazing out at sea. Some of the members of the Legion had been quick to notice as well. "Is your friend alright, Commander?" Cesare herself then asked as she came over, accompanied by David Collins.

"Yeah, she seems really bothered about something," Mary-Jo Brown, a pretty blue-eyed brunette farmer from Gadsden near Birmingham who was often seen as one of the poster girls for the Legion due to her wholesome looks, then asked.

The second of the Yorktown-class carriers hummed, then she nodded politely before she headed out onto the deck, coming up to slip her arm around Yamato's. The battleship gazed down at her, then she sighed. "I don't mean to be rude," the first of her class quietly said. "But I detected Onē-sama here not so long ago. Why didn't she contact us when she came here? I doubt she would have shirked from battle if it presented itself, Yvonne." She then shuddered. "Is she...?"

"Chill, Yasuko," a strange woman's voice then declared, making both Yamato and Enterprise gasp in shock before they spun right to see a smiling nuclear-powered missile cruiser standing nearby, a phoenix perched on her shoulder. "Your sis is cool," Long Beach then assured her. "Turns out the magical squares in Manhattan tried to pull some bad mojo on a friend of mine, then we had to get him somewhere safe where the squares couldn't get back and hurt him some more."

Yamato blinked. "Er, Yvonne...?"

Enterprise sighed. "Battleship Yamato, this is nuclear-powered light cruiser Long Beach, the only Vietnam War-era ship to come back to duty as a shipgirl, now serving as personal shipgirl hit-girl of President Bartlet."

"Call me 'Cass'," Long Beach said as Yamato seemed to cringe on hearing who this cruiser had been as a warship.

"Her real name's Naomi Haight-Ashbury, by the way," Enterprise then teased.

Long Beach moaned. "C'mon, E! Don't be a square...!"

"This is a NUCLEAR ship?!"

That was William Costilow, who had come out immediately on sensing the powerful presence that just teleported in. As the phoenix perched on the cruiser's shoulder chortled before she vanished in a flash of fire, Long Beach looked over before she grinned on seeing the raven-haired middle-aged investor and part-time rum-runner standing there. "Holy! The first dude to really see the Astral Plane for what it really is! Put 'em there, man!" she said as she walked over to shake his hand.

Costilow blinked before he gazed at Enterprise. "Commander Swanson?"

Enterprise sighed. "She was nuclear-powered. They had reactors as part of the Manhattan Project to create the plutonium needed for atomic munitions. When she became a shipgirl, the Canadian magicals converted her to mesonium fuel."

"I assume that was because of limitless energy potential and reducing the need for fuel oil."

That was Professor Matthew Gardner, a native of Santa Fe in New Mexico who had been a scientist at the University of California at Berkley who worked under the famous Ernest Lawrence concerning the development of the cyclotron. Gardner had developed atomic-manipulation powers during his time in California, donning the black-and-white costume of _**Phase Master**_ when he felt ready to be a mystery-man. The raven-haired, dark-eyed native of New Mexico hadn't been the only person involved in both the Manhattan Project and serving as a mystery-man protecting North America, Enterprise knew; a Canadian scientist from Saint Catharines near Niagara Falls named Neil Donaldson had been a member of the Soldiers of Freedom as the Master of Energy, _**Captain Electron**_. "It was, Professor," she answered. "But over time, it was discovered that maintaining anything other than a carrier or a submarine on nuclear energy was expensive. As to how Cass here came back..."

"That's easy to explain," Long Beach said as she waved Enterprise down. "When Mama E and the others from the Land of Maple Syrup went out to wipe out the nuclear fuel and weapons in the ships the Abyssals went and wrecked in Blood Week, some magical squares from Manhattan took my hull, towed it out to sea just beyond Vancouver Island and sank it, thinking that would keep the Abyssals away from wrecking magical communes. Something weird happened when Mama C had to come along and deep-six my wreck, then I came back as this." She waved to herself in emphasis as Yamato moaned and Enterprise shook her head. "'Course, that's when the Astral Plane called out to me and told me why God brought me back this way, so I went to Papa J to tell him what was going down, then he told me to go spread free love everywhere I went."

Gardner's eyebrows arched before he gazed at his friend. "Did you understand a word of that, Bill?"

"Hippie-talk is rather unique, Professor," Enterprise said as Yamato giggled. "Put simply, Cass believes it's her duty to go out and win over the Abyssals with love instead of hate." As both Gardner and Costilow, not to mention a good number of their friends, all gaped on hearing that, the carrier added, "Since that runs against what most of the Abyssals believe is proper, they all ended up calling her the 'Crazy One' in return. They RUN from this girl whenever she shows up!"

"If they get too square with groovy folks, I waste 'em," Long Beach admitted with a shrug. "Kinda sad to do that. It ain't their fault that they turn out that way. When you check them out, Papa B, you'll see what I'm talking about."

Costilow sighed. "I think I might."

"You'll get your chance, Sensei," Yamato warned, making the Cosmic Arch-Mage look her way. "A child-form princess named Hoppō was adopted by my fleet's secretary ship, Nagato, after both Yvonne and I rescued her when she was betrayed by several of her fellow installation princesses three years ago. If you really intend to come to Japan to make sure other surprises like what you discovered concerning young Harry-chan don't come to harm us, you'll be meeting her soon enough. Onē-sama — my sister Yonaga — knows of another that she discovered with Chennalton-sensei's help a year ago. There's a third one named Trista who's based near Hamburg now, at the magical school on an island off the estuary of the Elbe."

"The Trischen School, you mean?" he mused. "Linn Heinrich of the Black Maidens went there. She was part of a war golem project that was run to wean Grindelwald's army away from using reanimated corpses all the time."

"We know about them, sir," Enterprise noted. "Two have actually bonded with Luise von Bismarck and Maria von Tirpitz."

"Much to Maria-san's despair," Yamato teased. "The 'lonely queen of the north' is not so lonely anymore." She then giggled.

"It's good she's discovering free love," Long Beach sagely noted, which made the others gaze on her. "Being alone all up in that fjord for all that time after losing her sis like that, ready to do her duty for the goose-steppers even if the Kriegsmarine was about the least goose-stepping service in all of the Wehrmacht, then forced to deal with little ones like the ones Miss V's cool dudes are feeding right now." She gazed inside the large living room as the destroyers continued eating as well as intermingling with members of the Legion. A smirk crossed her face before she gazed once more on the two metahumans. "We're the sum of the dreams of all our builders and crews, Papa B, Doc. I served in the time of the Summer of Love..."

"In protest over a war, I take it," Costilow mused as he gave her a knowing look.

"What war?!"

That was David Collins. As people quieted down, Long Beach sighed, shaking her head. "Right! You folks all got the express train past the Cold War right to today," she declared. "Put very simply, things between us and our Russian brothers soured big time after you all tripped out of the scene to get rid of that bomb the goose-steppers tried to use on Hogtown. It wasn't Big Mistake Number Three but a ton of little wars all over the planet. The one that affects me the most was Vietnam."

That made people perk. "Weren't the Vietnamese allowed to be independent?!" Cesare asked. "They had this really nice guy who ran the anti-Japanese resistance in that country! Sure, he was a communist, but he was a nationalist first..."

"Uncle Hồ, you mean?" Long Beach asked before she nodded. "Yeah, Miss V, he tried...but everything he did to keep the country together got torn apart because of the whole capitalist-versus-communist bad scene that you folks might remember from back after Big Mistake Number One. The country got ripped apart and a lot of good kids got drafted into fighting Uncle Hồ's troops and dying over there for no real reason. It just got so crazy that too many just didn't want to do it."

"It happened at the same time as a big social revolution hit society," Enterprise added. "A lot of things that came into vogue in magical society a century ago became accepted in normal society during the 1960s while Vietnam was being fought."

"That black angled wall on the National Mall, you mean?"

That was the District of Columbia's representative in the Legion, Paul O'Kane. The only African-American in the Legion despite his Irish family name, the policeman from the southeast side of Washington became the Steady Fighter, _**Steadfast**_ , when his powers came out to the fore in the mid-1930s. He was often the target of white supremacists who didn't care for a BLACK man having such powers, but found himself often defended by his friends from the states of the old Confederacy, who had nothing but the highest praise for the butcher's son. "That's the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, Sergeant O'Kane," Enterprise noted. "The names of the people from America who died or went missing in that country up to the last pullout in 1975 are marked there. It was..." She gazed on Long Beach before shaking her head. "A very bad scene from start to end."

"Yeah. In a way, you guys fought and helped win the last truly righteous war," the cruiser added.

"Was it that bad, Paul?" Mary-Jo Brown asked.

O'Kane blinked before he sighed, then he smiled as Mutsuki handed him a cup of coffee, nodding his thanks. "Just after I got back to the house, I did a flight around town," he admitted. "Saw it there. Was the most stark thing I ever saw in my whole life. So I dropped down to look at it. One of the folks who works for the organization that helps keep the place neat and all that..." He chuckled. "Well, after she got over the shock of me being there, she told me about her brother. He's on the wall."

"I take it we didn't win that war," Bryce Carruthers mused.

"No, Mister Carruthers," Enterprise stated. "It was a textbook example of the WRONG way to run a war, especially since the people who fought for Hồ Chí Minh were determined to bring the country back together and drive the foreigners out no matter how much it cost in lives. First the Japanese, then the French, then us. When I read about that war after I came back...!"

"That explains it."

Eyes locked on O'Kane. "What do you mean, Paul?" Cesare asked.

"The lady that gave me the tour," the policeman from the southeast side of Washington stated. As people nodded him to go on, he said, "After I told her that I was coming here to check up on everyone else, she hugged me." That earned him dropped jaws. "She told me she was happy that none of us were involved in that war. It was one bad thing after the next, especially with the way the politicians bungled it up; that's what she said to me." He sighed. "Maybe when we get the chance...?"

"In costumes?" Jane Kesler asked.

"Is that a good thing to do?" Brown wondered.

Eyes locked on Collins. The Texan law enforcement officer took a deep breath. "No matter what, they fought and died for the country. We always respected that." He gazed on Enterprise. "I hope, Commander, you'll teach us things so that we don't end up hurting people who don't deserve it. Especially if they have a relative who's name is on that wall Paul just told us about."

"It'll be cool, Ranger Dave."

That was destroyer Johnston. "She's right," New Jersey said. "People will realize you folks are seventy years out of date on stuff, especially with the way people look at each other these days and what's seen as right and not right to say to other folks. You're really no different than a lot of us who came back after being sunk during the war or scrapped after it was done. They'll cut you a whole ton of slack, especially when they found out why you disappeared over Toronto in '45 in the first place."

"We still have to beat the Abyssals, Kathy," Heermann warned.

"We'll do that, too!"

Everyone laughed...

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District Headquarters, that moment (local time: Thursday 25 May, breakfast)...**_

"Light carrier Shōhō, reporting back for duty, Secretary Ship."

Nagato smiled as she returned the raven-haired ex-submarine support ship's salute. "Welcome back, Shōhō-san," the battleship returned. "Have you been briefed on what Negako-san's last host did in the wake of your 'sinking'?"

The shipgirl legally now known as Takasaki Shōko blushed. "Hai! Both Negako-sama and Ataru-kun explained everything." She then perked. "I didn't see your son near your quarters when I was brought here from Tomobiki, Reiko-san..."

"He's currently attending magical school right now, Shōko-san."

That made the carrier's eyebrow arch before she nodded. "Magical...?! So it was magic that Harry-chan possessed! It explains some of the things that happened around him before I deployed south for Operation MO. Is he going to Dejima?"

"No, Hogwarts."

That made Shōhō frown. "That's...disappointing."

"You had magicals serve as part of your crew, Lieutenant?" Gotō Kiichi asked from his place at the head of the room.

The former submarine tender nodded. "Hai, Teitoku. Two were actual members of Yomigawa-gensui's research group that helped liberate the Chinese from the influence of the Europeans in 1937. They both died when I was sunk at the Coral Sea." She then gazed on Saratoga before a tender smile crossed the young carrier's face. "Even if your sister acted to destroy all around her, she didn't succumb to some of the more bestial things Abyssals have done before the major went to deal with her, Dionne-san. I hope she and the others that were at Torokina are able to be summoned back properly now." A shudder shook her. "Would I be considered a Category 'D' case because I came back this way, Reiko-san?" At Nagato's shocked look, Shōhō smirked as a shrug rolled her shoulders. "I heard your sister call Kei-san that shortly after she defected from the enemy with Anna-san's help, Reiko-san. I would assume Kisaragi Kyōko-chan is considered the same even after what Ameretāt-san did."

Nagato gazed on the light carrier for a moment, then she sighed. "Iie. You would not have been released from Negako-san's care if you were still deemed a danger, Shōko-san. And there's no need to keep that concept a secret anymore. Everyone found out about it when Kyōko-san came back to us the first time when we were dealing with that infestation in Ironbottom Sound." She then blinked as Shōhō jerked. "Something even my future sister-in-law disapproved of?"

Shōhō nodded. "H-hai! That place..." She took a deep breath. "From what we learned, twenty-five millennia ago when the Black Tear of the Stars empowered the Undying Lord and he forged his alliance with the Great Beasts, that was a scene of battle between his friends who claimed that area as theirs and one of the nastier of the Old Ones. I don't recall what relations you have with the Slayers and their friends, but this devil was vicious, despised by most of his kind. The spiritual stains of that battle is embedded in the underlying bedrock of Ironbottom Sound, Reiko-san. I doubt even what Gayle-sensei and Darlene-sensei did after your forces returned to Japan would have permanently removed it. None of my group at Torokina wished to go there even if we gladly hunted and destroyed any Abyssal who came into being from that general area and got out into the open." At the shocked looks crossed the faces of everyone else in the room, Shōhō sighed. "It was necessary."

"Antibodies..."

That was Akashi, who was seated nearby, sipping a cup of tea that Niiyodo had made for her. Beside her were Ryūjō and Jun'yō. "What does that mean, Sensei?" Gotō asked as people gazed upon the lead of her class of repair ship.

The pink-haired repair auxiliary shook her head. "It's a weird thought that just came to me when Shōko-san here explained what her group was doing concerning those Abyssals that remained active even after Australia and Sundown went there to clear out that area after we came back from the second phase of Operation MO, Teitoku," she said. "If what Dionne-san's sister and the others there did was to remove any direct demonic influence from the sea given what Shōko-san just said..."

"There are multiple types of Abyssals, you mean," Nagato mused.

Akashi nodded. "It's a possibility."

Silence fell over the room for a moment. "Wonderful! Just to make our lives more complicated than they already are," Gotō breathed out. "Arisa-sensei, bounce what you just heard from Shōko-san off Lincoln-daitōryō when he comes to visit today. What would his thoughts be about this?" As Shōhō gaped in shock on hearing that the famous Rail-Splitter was now in Japan, the senior commander of the country's shipgirls took a deep breath. "Much that we know we can trust you in this matter, Lieutenant, the politicians will insist on a firm 'hand' over you until you've proven yourself. To that end, you and your sister will both deploy to Sasebo. You will form the Fourth Carrier Division between yourselves and Taihō, then combine with the Sixth Carrier Division to form the Second Air Fleet under Yonaga's overall command." He sighed as a weak squawk escaped Shōhō on hearing THAT name. "Yes, I'm aware of how Abyssals view Yonaga, but it will be done, Lieutenant. Get over it!"

Shōhō shuddered before she nodded. "Hai, Teitoku...!"

Sympathetic looks came her way from the other shipgirls in the room...

* * *

 _ **Sasebo, Kōkai Junior High School, that moment...**_

"Tadaima."

"Okaeri nasai!" many voices chimed back.

Moroboshi Ataru perked as his mind registered that cold voice, then he looked over as the fifth of the Yamato-class walked into the old school lunchroom. His ki senses had picked up the phoenix that had transported his great-uncle's ship from America back to Japan. "Nothing bad, I hope," he said before smiling as Roma leaned over with a cornetto spread with honey to place into his mouth. "Was it Cass that needed your help?" he asked after munching down the bite he took.

"Not really. I can say that those fool conservatives in the Magical Congress are busily weaving the hemp rope to hang them all off a yardarm with, Ataru-san," Yonaga said before she perked as a pastry with a touch of honey hovered before her face. She then looked over to see a smiling high school sophomore seated there. "Makoto-san," she breathed out, though she was happy to allow Hyūji Makoto to lean over to allow the cornetto to be placed into her mouth. After she took her own bite, she then gazed on the third of the Littorio-class battleships. "La benedizione di Dio al nobile chef," she then said in beautiful Italian, making Roma gasp in shock. "Be with any of the Ryūseizen for a time, Roberta-san, you learn to be a polyglot."

Roma blinked, then she smiled. "Ringraziamenti eterni, mio Capitano," she said as she bowed her head in return. "I pray it's not too rich for you. Given what sort of rations your crew must have lived off on for seven decades and more..."

"I'll make sure she's fed right, Roberta-san," Makoto declared with a wink.

Laughter escaped the others in the room. Save for Akagi and Kaga — who were here as emotional support for their just-returned sisters — all the shipgirls who were seated at the table were assigned here. "Forgive my asking this, Yoiko, but whatever did young Naomi need that required YOUR help?" Arizona then asked as her own would-be special boatswain's mate, Matsuhara Keiko, held out a strawberry crostata for her to eat. "If she's as powerful as Captain Smith and the others..."

"Unlike myself or any of the Ryūseizen, Naomi-chan isn't blessed by the Great Beasts or was built magical from the keel up, Sonia-san," the carrier stated before biting into the pastry her would-be lover held out for her. "In addition, her existence is known to disagreeable elements of the Magical Congress. It was agents affiliated to those people that took her old hull from Puget Sound and sunk it off the coast of Vancouver Island, requiring Patricia-san to destroy it with her Mark XLVI shells. The combination of plutonium radiation, mesonium and magic is what made Naomi-chan become what she is now. Since her crew were involved in that dratted war in Vietnam, she became the 'shipgirl flower child' she emerged as."

"Well, from what Sonia's told me about young Naomi, she is doing her own part to win this war," Mississippi stated as she bit into the serving of pastries Roma had prepared for everyone. "And striving for peace is always an honourable thing. Did you or yours ever encounter Naomi, Tomomi?" she then asked as she gazed on Kaga's just-returned sister and her friends.

Tosa, Tōgasa, Minako and Ashitaka blinked before they blushed. "Not in an intimate matter, of course, Joanna-san," the first of her class of battleships said, which made her sister gape in surprise at her. "Kei, much that most of those like us always saw her as the 'Crazy One' when she decided to spread 'free love' to all those she encountered, Naomi-san is touched by forces that are truly beyond even our comprehension." She then sipped her tea. "She came upon us when we were visiting Saint Maria Christos, being intimate with our lovers and missing Makoto-chan and her peers; this was nine months ago."

"We were in Nerima at the time," Makoto confirmed.

"Indeed. While I knew I couldn't duel her unless I was VERY lucky, she assured me that you and your friends were in a safe place striving to seek free love and not what Murata forced you into becoming." Tosa then sighed before she gazed on her own lover, Matsuda Sawako. "I suspect deep down, Naomi-san understood what was developing between my beloved and myself even if it was forced by that maniac in the first place. Believe me, Yoiko-san, when you get your hands on him..."

"Invite us to the party," Tōgasa snarled before she smiled as her own lover Horiguchi Junko leaned over to kiss her cheek.

"So why were you scared of her, Onē-sama?!" Akagi demanded.

The battlecruiser who would have been named "Amagi" blushed...before she blinked, then she gazed on Kaga, her own eyes wide with shocked disbelief. Knowing how much Tosa's sister loved her own sister...! "Kei, haven't you bothered...?!"

"They're not ready for _**that**_ yet, Tokiko!" Kaga hissed out, her eyes tearing.

"Not ready for what, Kei?" Pennsylvania hissed.

"They are ready, Kei."

The converted Tosa-class battleship gazed on the fifth of the Yamato-class for a moment, then she sighed. "I pray so, Yoiko."

People blinked, though many winced on hearing the guilt-driven pain in Kaga's voice...

* * *

 _ **An hour later...**_

"You're saying that Abyssals were some type of NATURAL DEFENCE against ALIENS?!"

"In essence, Sawako-san, that is the case," Kaga stated, trying not to smile on seeing her future sister-in-law grip her own sister's hand tightly; no matter what might happen to Tosa now, the nurse clearly didn't care for the idea of her lover going out to fight alien monsters. "As those who have spoken of this subject to Ataru-san or Negako-san know, our solar system is at the nexus of intersecting alien spheres of interest." She indicated the map of the local cluster Ataru drew on the blackboard in one of the classrooms close to the cafeteria. "To the galactic 'north' of us, the Imperial Dominion of Noukiios and the Six Churches of Zephyrus, one of the inheritor races of the Fourth Sagussan Republic. To the galactic 'west', the Imperial Houses of the Seifukusu Dominion, who actually had control of space around Earth up to about a thousand years ago even if our planet itself was not invaded as our system-mates on Neptune (now Triton) were. To the galactic 'east' is the Ipraedies Empire, a smaller, less-experienced yet very ambitious version of the Seifukusu. Wedged between all three are the minor states of the Galactic Federation of Planet-states; Uru and Phentax Two are two members of the Federation. Farther out to the galactic 'east', the Confederation of Vos and the Royal Kingdoms of Yehisril, the other two great powers in the cluster beyond Noukiios, Zephyrus and Dominos. Beyond the local cluster, we have powers like the remnants of the Goa'uld, their former Jaffa slaves and other races encountered by America's Stargate Command. I believe Michiko-san would remember O'Neill-taishō speaking to Yvonne-san once about them when the Urusians came to our system a year ago to 'invade' us."

"Why is our planet so interesting to aliens, Kei-san?" Makoto asked as San Francisco nodded in confirmation.

"The Power Jewel, Makoto."

That was Hayashi Kanami, who was seated beside Taihō. Also present at this meeting were Prinz Eugen, all five Sekihō-class aircraft carriers recently summoned to duty in this very school building and the four Mogami-class cruisers who formed the Seventh Cruiser Squadron. "Hai, Kanami-san is right, Makoto-san," Kaga stated. "Outside Yiziba itself, Earth has the largest mesonium deposits in the galaxy thanks to Raeburn-shihan's possessing what has been often called the 'Keystone Jewel'. Because it was said to the first Jewel empowered by the Seekers to be placed on a planet capable of developing life, it became a lodestone for other mesonium fragments, especially the 'black tear' meteor that later empowered Rittmeister von Taserich, not to mention the deposits all over the planet that allowed metahumans to rise in the 1930s akin to how the Dawn of Power began on Yiziba two millennia ago. Due to that, those who are attuned to mesonium were attracted to explore this world. One of them is Ataru-san's spiritual patron, Keiseri of Sagussa, who came to visit Earth a hundred millennia ago. He later became known as the 'Master of Entropy' in the creation myths of the Fourth Sagussan Republic our Avalonian friends know."

"Who was he, Ataru?" Eugen asked. "When you fought on the Tarōzakura Hill yesterday, your other-self said your master's old laboratory was buried deep under that hill. Given how Haru's old 'friend' hated you seizing it..."

Ataru smirked. "It would be useless to me, Rinnie. The Third Republic Sagussans were quite genetically different from the race that succeeded them. From what Onē-sama concluded, they had evolved beyond the need for bodies..."

"Like the Organians in the old _Star Trek_ series, you mean," Suzuya noted.

"Same idea, Suzuko-san. But when he moved to 'seed' Sagussa with a successor race to bring new life, his friends balked at the whole idea and moved to stop it. That proved to be the final Götterdämmerung of the Third Republic. And it wasn't just contained in a physical sense of the term. It was a fight that spread beyond the normal limits of known space-time into other dimensions, leaving big gaping holes in the dimensional walls when it was all said and done with. Thanks to that, those beings Buffy-san and her friends call the 'Old Ones' came to Earth. We all know thanks to friends in Sunnydale what happened next."

"Literally Hell on Earth," Pennsylvania noted. Much that she wasn't named after the home state of the elder Slayer or many of her friends, she had fans in Sunnydale, even among the undead population. Margaret Penn even had a standing invitation from Liam "Angel" O'Connor to come to Los Angeles after her release from Navy service to come work at Angel Investigations. "So what happened next, Kei? How the hell does that lead to what you and your sister were turned into?"

"A long process, Margaret-san," the carrier warned, which made many of the people in the room laugh. "As the alien demons began to stake out their places on Earth, other forces arose at the same time. Yoiko here is blessed by one."

"The Great Beasts," Arizona concluded.

"Exactly. And a war beyond imagination raged over the planet between the Old Ones and the Great Beasts in a see-saw way for many thousands of years, with thousands of humanoids suffering as a result. Some evolved into the so-called Powers That Be, the so-called 'enemies' of the Old Ones." Here, Kaga snorted. "They were more interested in keeping a 'balance' instead of removing the 'infection' that the Old Ones presented to Earth. This was sensed by Raeburn-shihan's Jewel."

"Then the Black Tear came to Rügen," Tōgasa finished.

"Rittmeister von Taserich," Akagi breathed out.

"Exactly, Anna," Kaga stated with a slight smile. "A tipping agent that inherited cosmic levels of power that the Old Ones couldn't HOPE to counter. Since the Old Ones had been responsible for the slaughter of his home village on Rügen, he focused his attention on them. The Great Beasts sided with him since they sensed he was 'home-grown' and not an 'alien'. However, as the Great Expulsion occurred, the Rittmeister discovered that too many demons had become fatally addicted to the energy of faith that their worshippers on Earth had given them. From that came the End Treaty, which forced the demons to forever decamp from Earth, but allowed them to continue to entreaty with normal humans in a controlled circumstance."

"That's when Lord Rjazán' got involved, right?" San Francisco asked.

"Exactly, Michiko-san. He was the guarantor." Kaga then took a deep breath. "Because of all the energy that got tossed around in the Great Expulsion, humans began to mutate in certain ways. The first magicals arose at this time, as did all the near-humanoid species such as the Veela, the Kobaloi and the Dweorg whose descendants we all can thank for helping build the Ryūseizen. Then came ten thousand years ago, when the first alien invasion of Earth in THIS dimension occurred."

"The Goa'uld," Ataru noted.

"What in God's name are they?" Tennessee wondered.

"Alien parasites, Alexandra-san," Yonaga answered with a scowl. "In physical form, they are aquatic serpentine creatures about a half-metre in length. They have the ability to possess any other creature by inserting themselves into the body and seizing control of the mind via the spinal cord. Long term possession effectively kills the host's soul and taking the body for itself. When they emerged from their homeworld at the time Kei-san just spoke of, they made use of members of a reptilian race known as the Unas to serve as host bodies. On coming to Earth, their supreme king, Ra, then discovered _Homo sapiens sapiens_ and decided that they would serve as better hosts. Thus, they elected to become 'gods' to humans, using their advanced technology to make themselves seem as such to beings who simply had no means to confirm otherwise." She then smirked. "One man could sense the truth about them. And he was simply too powerful for any of the 'gods' to deal with."

"The Rittmeister again," Roma mused. "Sacra Maria, he must have been busy!"

"Yeah, but he was just one man, Tesoro," Ataru noted. "Until he got a 'son'."

"Master Hosan," Mogami concluded.

"On the nose, Momoko-san. The Goa'uld got their tails brutally kicked off Earth by Ojii-san and his son, then the Seifukusu — who were breaking out into space at that same time — swept in from Dominos to rub salt on the wounds. But since they had seen Ojii-san and his son in action, the lords of the Imperial Houses at the time decided it was smart to leave Earth alone while it developed its own technology without outside interference." He then sighed. "Other races weren't so lucky."

"How bad?" Eugen wondered.

"Oyuki-sama's people were forced to decamp from Neptune to Triton a millennia ago because the planet just was poisoned too badly thanks to over-industrialization, Rinnie," he answered. "The Urusians' knowledge of their very own history and culture before their planet was conquered was totally wiped out, which forced them to adopt from the Seifukusu wholesale when they freed themselves nine centuries ago. Vos weathered it the best; the Confederation actually came together as one government to toss off the Seifukusu. Other planets..." He shook his head. "They're not really important in this conversation. Of course, by the time Vos was getting out there, so were Noukiios and Zephyrus. Yehisril came a little later."

"As time went on, the 'minor' powers began marking out their own places in space," Kaga finished. "However, over the years, the various powers took interest in Earth. Unlike other worlds, Dominos left us alone. I'm sure people asked 'Why?' So they sent observers to infiltrate our societies to learn more. Of course, while a policy of non-interference and avoiding 'first contact' was pursued, their presence here was detected by certain powers. The Rittmeister, Master Hosan, those of the Rittmeister's 'students' who came to master some elements of the mesonium 'gifts' he gave them, not to mention high-powered magicals such as Dumbledore-kōchōsensei's old teacher, Nicolas Flamel. Then the Niphentaxians discovered us."

"What happened, Kei-san?" Arizona's lover asked.

"They became addicted to replicating Earth society and culture as soon as they fully came to understand us, Keiko-san," the carrier answered. "While they did pursue a strict policy of non-interference to ensure the 'purity' of their social observations — thus weren't any real threat to the natives — they then made a huge mistake about a century ago, around the time Raeburn-shihan became the Protector of All Life." She then shuddered. " _ **They violated the END TREATY!**_ "

"The Avalonians," Yonaga breathed out.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"The Avalonians were enslaved and brought to Earth as assistant observers," Arizona stated. "Many must have died, usually because of a war somewhere. Since they have mesonium in their blood, their mortal remains flowed into the ocean..."

"And ultimately created creatures that would avenge their deaths from the spiritual wa of the oceans themselves, powered by the mesonium in the environment," Kaga finished. "Hai, Sonia-san. Thus came the Hungry Ones..."

"The sea leviathans," Yonaga explained.

"The ones Patty and her sisters fought?" Pennsylvania asked.

"Same, Margaret-san. Once peace was achieved, the creatures — if they weren't destroyed by Erin-san and her sisters — went dormant. Then came the Second World War. And an evolution NONE of our galactic neighbours desired to see develop."

"Metahumans," Ataru breathed out. "Shades of the Dawn of Power."

People winced as they instantly imagined how someone like Redet Lum's father Redet Invader might have reacted on getting THAT type of intelligence. Many shipgirls and their human friends who knew Moroboshi Ataru personally knew also of his second adopted sister, Moroboshi Tariko. Born from the life energy that had been forced into his body after his time being split into twins thanks to Sakurambō Hayao and Ataru's "wife" eleven months before, allowed to live in a cloned Terran-form Avalonian body, she was Gifted with the power of the Trickster of the Great Show of Life on Yiziba, _**Coyote**_ ; among aliens, she was known better by the native translation of that name, _**Tuyuki**_. Thus, save for the recent summons, they all knew the story of the World of the Forge where the Power Jewels had been created three billion years before. "In the wake of World War Two, alien observers began to support efforts by neighbouring powers — mostly the Urusians and their allies in the Federation — to try to locate non-magical metahumans and destroy them," Kaga stated. As people gasped, she then shook her head. "The Niphentaxians refused to go along with it at first since it was direct interference in Terran affairs. Point to them. But they did nothing to stop it either. The Avalonians who were enslaved by them didn't care deep down for such things happening...and that eventually flowed into the sea. Which planted the seeds of beings such as myself and Onē-sama, not to mention Anna's sisters. Then came the two big spiritual events in recent years that reverberated across the planet and made us truly live."

"Which are?" Mikuma asked.

"The attempts by the Goa'uld to invade Earth through the Stargate that the Americans discovered in Egypt after the Great War, Miki-san. As we know, that started in 1997. That was soon followed by the collapse of the Sunnydale Hellmouth in 2003. Both events created massive shockwaves in the very wa of the whole planet. Earth was being threatened. Aliens were trying to force their will on us. Since the Hungry Ones weren't suited for that sort of combat, something better was needed."

"Abyssals."

Heads snapped over.

"Abigail!" Arizona gasped on seeing Iowa standing there.

Kaga sighed. "You remember now about your lost gun crew in 1989, my friend?"

Gasps escaped many there. "Sacred Buddha! You were _**infiltrated**_ , Gabby-san?!" Kumano croaked out in horror.

"Yeah, I was!" the lead of her class snapped. "But he meant no harm!"

"Those of us in the Atlantic wouldn't take the chance!"

Eyes locked on Kaga. "Is he with you now, Gabby-san?" Akagi asked.

Iowa shook her head. "No. He was Seishin-Urusian, Anna; Aruka Ran's race." As people nodded in understanding, she sat down, then took one of the doughnuts on a nearby tray to nibble on it. "His belief structures are pretty different than what we're used to, so he didn't come back when I was summoned at Kitsap. He was part of their democratic reform movement led by Seq Rei's mom Yedris. He was here STUDYING American society to help bring democracy to his people and wanted to understand the proper relationship between the military and the government since his people had been ruled by a junta for two centuries." As people gaped, she nodded to Ataru. "Ataru can tell you this, guys! Not all aliens are bad! Many mean us no harm! My gunner meant no harm! He was happy to serve in the Navy until he got killed and his friend got blamed for it!"

"But those that attacked you wouldn't know that since they weren't as mentally developed at the time and would only see an alien 'virus' infecting your hull that needed to be expunged immediately," Yonaga finished. "Did the magicals who came to 'sanitize' the scene and make your crew forget what had exactly attacked you off Puerto Rico realize the truth?"

Iowa snorted, a bitter laugh escaping her. "Not in a million years, Yoiko! They never knew about the SGC even before it was finally shut down after the Men In Black were lost in the first big attack on New York City. They never suspected something like aliens until the Tag Race went down last year and Negako began doing the sweep of the planet with the help of our Yizibajohei like the Wakefield twins out of Sweet Valley and Kasuga Ayumu to get rid of the Niphentaxians." She smirked. "Loved to see the looks on their faces when they learned that." As her starry blue eyes teared, she shook her head before Yonaga's hand landed on her shoulder. "Damn...!" A sob then escaped her. "He meant no harm! No harm at all...!"

Another hand landed on her other shoulder. She looked up to stare at Kaga's sympathetic face. "I grieve with your loss, Gabby. And I am so sorry that happened in the first place." She then shrugged. "Only excuse I can give..."

"As Yoiko-san just said, they weren't as sentient or sapient as they later evolved into being," Akagi finished with a helpless shrug. "So when chances came, Abyssals went after ships that had aliens travelling on it to remove the 'plague'."

"Which would have been alright hadn't various magical ministries misread the whole damned situation and decided to treat this as a 'magical' issue that had to be 'masked' from normal view," Eugen finished. "Just like they did back in the 1930s when the first mystery-men came out. But this time, they were fighting the spiritual power of the OCEANS, which was way beyond their capabilities." She shook her head as she then thought about her precious pet tatzelwurm, Matilda, whom she rescued on her first visit to Europe as a shipgirl, then kept safe from agents of the Austrian magical ministry who wanted to remove the creature from normal view. "Since the Abyssals were effectively smart animals, they lashed back, hurting the magicals in a way not even the Übermenschen could equal. The fighting increased and increased, with more normal people being killed..."

"Which led to Blood Week," Ataru finished.

Silence fell as people considered that...

...before a voice called out, "Just like the 'Nam."

Heads snapped over...

"Hey, Cass!" Ataru greeted.

"Hey, A-man! Peace, everyone!" Long Beach called out as she walked inside, making Tosa and her battlecruiser friends all cringe as they sensed the powerful aura of the Crazy One. "Sorry I missed the big reveal in the end."

"How is John-san?" Yonaga asked.

"He's crashing at the 'Morny, hiding from the squares who made him hurt Papa B and his friends through the magical pig squad," the nuclear-powered cruiser said as she walked over to pat Iowa on the shoulder. "Wasn't your fault, Gabby."

"He was still part of my crew, Cass," the battleship protested.

"It was his time to return to the Astral Plane," Long Beach advised. "'Sides, if the A-Man's and the Earth Child's big project with the Crystal Folk plays out big-time, you'll be able to take his ashes home to his parents on Uru."

Ataru awked, making people gaze on him. "They're not ready," Roma warned.

"What project?" Akagi asked.

He looked at them, then he sighed. "Can we say 'Shipgirls in SPACE'?"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Are you SERIOUS?!" Arizona demanded.

Ataru winked. "No! That's Harry-chan's godfather, Sonia-san!"

Moans escaped everyone from the bad pun...

...before a beeping noise from nearby made Ataru's head snap over. "Damn! Who's calling?" he wondered as he got up to tap the iPad-like device that was sitting on the teacher's desk nearby. Looking on the screen, he sighed. "Shit!" he hissed out before he tapped a control, allowing a holographic projection to fall on a drawn-down movie screen set off to one side of the classroom. "Ohayō, Nassur-san! It's been a while! What brings you back over to our part of the galaxy?!"

People looked over, then gaped on seeing the handsome brown-haired man with the blue-eyes, well-trimmed moustache and beard and the elegantly tapered ears — shaped in a different way than a Niphentaxian or an Urusian had it — now seated in what appeared to be a starship command bridge somewhere. Much to the surprise of all the shipgirls, he was dressed in a blue uniform similar in cut to what Starfleet officers wore in the second to the seventh _Star Trek_ movies from before the turn of the millennium, a golden cygnet insignia on his left chest over his heart. "Hello, Ataru-san," the man said, his mouth moving differently from what was being heard, indicating a universal translator-like system was now active. "Sorry to call you in. Some sort of strategy meeting you're involved in?" he then asked as some of the cruisers in the room began to chatter.

"More like a little confession on Kei-san's part here because of what really sort of goosed this war we're involved in now," Ataru admitted as he gazed on Kaga before he focused on the independent Vosian bounty hunter. "What's up?"

"When we met on Okusei after Negako-san and Tariko-san were allowed to live their lives, I briefed you on Rei's uncle and his friends," Nassur stated as a wry smile crossed his face, earning him an annoyed groan from Ataru on being reminded of the Imperial Round. "They decided to finally make their move once they learned how much they had been blindsided because of what the Avalonians would do to them once you freed them after you persuaded Kyech to go along with it."

His eyes closed. "What did they try to do?"

"Well, for people who claim Earth culture is beneath them, some were obviously fans of your animation. _Uchū Senkan Yamato_ , to be exact. Specifically the first season of which, where the Seifukusu lookalikes tried to wipe out life on Earth."

"'Space Battleship Yamato'?" Yonaga wondered.

"I'll explain later, Yoiko-san," Ataru promised before he shook his head. "So they wanted to bombard us with asteroids to get past Elizabeth-san's wonderful screening system, you mean?" At Nassur's nod, the younger man shook his head. "Great...!" He then blinked before he gave his "wife's" former combat teacher a knowing look. "I assume because you're as cool as a cucumber about this, something happened that put the total kibosh on what those inbred morons wanted to do?"

"Courtesy of a mutual friend of ours from Nishinomiya," Nassur affirmed.

That made Ataru blink before he smirked. "Same time the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom got back?" he asked.

"Very same time," Nassur affirmed with a return smirk before he sobered. "Ataru-san, I have to warn you, their return back..."

"Will be a drop in the water in comparison to what I am prepared to unleash on those idiots if they don't back off once and for all time, Nassur!" Ataru snarled as his left eye began to glow. Roma instantly was at his side as she squeezed his shoulders in reassurance to calm him down, which made him take a deep breath, though the darker side of his mind was in full control now. " **Nassur, you tell Yethis and his fools this** ," he then said in that metallic voice that was the herald of a tonne of pain for whoever earned his ire. " **You tell them that all their attempts at hurting people on Earth since LONG BEFORE the Tag Race were stopped by the** _ **Abyssals**_ **! Who all turned out to be a NATURAL reaction of the very BIOSPHERE of Earth itself to ensure such alien PARASITES would not harm life on this planet!** " As Nassur gaped at him, Ataru smirked. " **And if THAT doesn't finally make those animals back off or make Lana's supporters kill them, warn them of what** _ **else**_ **happened on Okusei concerning my OTHER sister! I WILL ask her to go to Uru and reintroduce them to what happened two centuries ago! Is that what they want?** " He shook his head as the glow in his eye faded. "I will do it, Nassur-san."

The Vosian gazed at him, then he sighed. In the last year or so, he had got quite a number of letters from his former student and her best friend concerning the last host of Earth's first true artificial intelligence. He had been sworn by the Dragonspeaker to total secrecy over the matter because of the temporal paradox situation unleashed by Nengmek'i at the Onishuto Cathedral. Remembering all the gushing words from Lum about him and contrasting them to Shigaten Benten's constant insults concerning the man, the former psi-tracker could only shake his head at the irony of it all. Neither Lum nor Benten had really known the true Moroboshi Ataru...until he came down on them like the meteor shower that was the translation of his family name and showed them how blind they had BOTH been. Such had devastated Lum and shaken Benten to the core of her very being, never mind what had happened to their other friends like Ran or Oyuki.

Sadly, Fate had other intentions for the man he was looking at now.

"I will pass that on."

"Arigatō," Ataru breathed out as he moved to cut the call so he could go somewhere and vent out his anger at THIS development. "Oh, would you keep an eye on Lum for me, Nassur? The instant some idiot blames her for helping 'bring' Tuyuki back, her standing among her people won't be worth a scrap of paper. Much that I fell out of love for her, she still was the only friend I had in Tomobiki. That still matters to me now regardless of all her lies to me in the past."

Nassur blinked, then he nodded, a light smile crossing his face. "I'll do that."

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Additional creator list for members of the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom, plus one former adversary/ally:

 **Trouble Clef** ( **John Davis** ) — created by Jason Cooke  
 **Dimension Girl** ( **Amy Purtell** ) — created by Steven Saint Thomas  
 **The Wildebeest** ( **Johannes Heribald** ) — created by John Herbert  
 **Ariel** ( **Mary-Jo Brown** ) — created by Francisco Garcia  
 **Phase Master** ( **Dr. Matthew Gardner** ) — created by Mike Cheung  
 **Steadfast** ( **Paul O'Kane** ) — created by Richard Hango

As an aside, Headmaster **George Sampson** of the **Canadian Forces School of Specialized Warfare** ( **CFSSW** ) is named in salute to the principal of Hero High from the Saturday morning mixed live action/animation series _**The Kid's Super Power Hour with Shazam**_ , created by Funimation and broadcast on NBC during the 1981-82 season. In this story, he was an infantry soldier of the Royal Canadian Regiment and veteran of the Second World War who developed his physical strength during the Italian campaign and was one of the members of the **3rd Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit** ( **3 CSWU** ). He is ranked a lieutenant colonel even if 3 CSWU is not an active element of the **Specialized Warfare Regiment of Canada** ( **SWR of C** ).

Patronymic noted in this part: **Iván Artúrovich** — John, son of Arthur

Translation list: **Nekul'túrnyje sprájty** — Uncultured sprites; **Dévochki-korábl'** — Plural of **dévochka-korábl'** ("fleet girl"); **Heer** — Literally "Lord" and normally translated "Mister"; **Ritmeester** — Afrikaans way of saying the German "rittmeister" (ride master); **Dame** — Literally "Lady" and normally translated "Miss"; **Fregatkaptein** — Frigate Captain, equal in rank to a Navy commander (NATO code OF-4); **La benedizione di Dio al nobile chef** — God's blessings to the noble chef; **Ringraziamenti eterni, mio capitano** — Eternal thanks, my captain; **Götterdämmerung** — Twilight of the Gods; **Sacra Maria** — Blessed Mary.

The **Order of Zikali** is South Africa's version of the Order of Merlin and was instituted in 1942 as an open show of permanently washing away all "British" influence on local magicals. It is split into three levels, from highest to lowest: **Grand Cross of Zikali** ( **GCZ** ), **Star of Zikali** ( **SZ** ) and **Medal of Zikali** ( **MZ** ). The Order of Zikali is named in tribute to the dwarf wizard who appeared in the famous _**Allan Quartermain**_ books by H. Rider Haggard.

Shipgirl introduced in this part:

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Shiratsuyu** — Hamamoto Miroko


	22. When Dreams Face the Firing Squad

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the cruiser dorms, Thursday 25 May, an hour after breakfast...**_

"Hey, Tamiyo! Tadako! How badly was 'Dachi hurt?! I heard Inoue-chan got hit, too! What the fuck's going on?!"

Tenryū and Tatsuta perked on hearing that demanding voice, then they shared a knowing smile before they gazed on the shivering beach café tomboy who had just stormed into their quarters. "'Dachi's healed in body, Ryū-chan," the elder of her class reassured as she walked over to squeeze Fujinami Ryūnosuke's shoulder to calm her. "Arisa-san's going to work getting her gear fixed up. Inoue got a bad cut on the leg and lost one of her torpedo launchers because of flying shrapnel when the submarine was brown up. That healer in the Legion got her as good as new and she'll be back on the water in a couple days. 'Dachi'll be about a week." On seeing the unofficial special boatswain's mate to members of Destroyer Division Six — and by extension, Cruiser Division Eighteen — relax on hearing that news, Tenryū winked at her with her good eye. "You can go visit them in their quarters if you want, but 'Dachi's sisters are gonna be mobbing her for a bit to make sure she gets her rest."

Ryūnosuke took that in, then she slowly nodded. "Thank Buddha...!" she breathed out, earning her grins from the two light cruisers. "So what was it like, anyway?" she then asked. "With these American metas you guys just met?!"

The two cruisers blinked, then Tatsuta sighed, shrugging. "Seventy years out of time, just like we were when we were first summoned," she said as she moved to slip off her sea uniform to get it washed, then put on a yukata for a good soak in the nearby bathhouse; even if she wasn't hurt, she was still one of the oldest cruisers in commission and always engaged in a healthy regime to keep her body and systems in top shape. "If the American admirals and O'Neill-taishō are smart, they'll get destroyers or cruisers who have some time as shipgirls under their belts to help them adjust to being in this day and age."

"Wouldn't surprise me if Bartlet-daitōryō ordered that," Tenryū added as she also dressed down for a trip to the baths. "After what they had to do to save the planet from fucking nuclear winter, they deserve all the help they can get."

"'Nuclear winter'?" Ryūnosuke asked, a wary look on her face.

"The Legion and the Soldiers disappeared into some sort of space-time warp that Mister Mystical created to take out a one-gig mesonium bomb the Ratzis were going to set off over Toronto," Tenryū stated as Tatsuta walked out of the room. Waving her new friend to accompany her, the raven-haired, one-eyed cruiser followed her sister down the hallway. "That's _**double**_ the yield of the thing Negako-san got out of the Tomobiki Ginza just before you got sent back here from Uru. Fortunately, one of our home-grown Yizibajohei was around to help out and teleported that thing — and the last of the Übermenschen — into space to set it off before it could hurt people here. That was the same time all the Legion and Soldiers came home."

"It also removed a new threat to the whole planet. Welcome back, girls."

Tatsuta and Tenryū stopped at the top of the stairs to the main floor before they turned as the fourth of the Takao-class heavy cruisers came up to join them, also in a yukata. With her was a girl about the same age as Ryūnosuke, an amused leer on her face, eyes behind glasses and her normally-braided hair loose around her shoulders. She was also in a yukata, though it was undone in a way that showed off Hiraga Yūko's "talent". Both light cruisers' sharp eyes were quick to pick out the sexual satisfaction on Chōkai's face which indicated that one of the two girls who had been able to escape the mass brainwashing of "M.C. High" and get their peers and teachers to safety in Nerima had scored with the nominal flagship of the Eighth Fleet. "Hey, Chiyo! Got a chance to watch the submarine races with Yū-chan?" Tenryū leered at the bespectacled heavy cruiser.

Chōkai smiled. "Yes, we were able to spend some considerable time engaging in night manoeuvres," she said with all seriousness, which made Ryūnosuke gape at her. That made the fourth of the Takao-class gaze at her. "Ryū-chan, please don't tell me you did NOT endure over a half-year at a place like Tomobiki High School without getting curious. Especially given that someone like Tsuruya Rumiko attended there and was in your very class." Her eyebrow arched.

That made the new owner of the Fujinami Hamachaya Café before she sighed, her cheeks reddening. "It ain't right to kiss and tell, Chiyo-san," she said. "And I know Rumiko-chan wouldn't have said a thing. How'd you guess?"

"We're cruisers, Ryū-chan. We have to be observant. It's our job," Chōkai said. "C'mon, let's all go to the baths. Given what Yū-chan did to me last night until we both got tired enough to finally sleep, I need it as much as you two old fogies do." She gazed at the Tenryū sisters in amusement, earning her an outraged yelp from the older of the pair and a gaze promising revenge from the younger. "Shall we take a chance to relax, Yū-chan?" she then asked as she gazed upon Yūko.

"I'm for that," Yūko purred.

The five women headed downstairs and made their way out of the cruiser dormitories towards the nearby bathhouse, which also doubled as a sort of light repair facility for the shipgirls of Yokosuka and any visiting shipgirls who needed a chance for a good soak in mineral-enhanced waters after a long voyage from distant ports. Reaching their destination soon enough, they walked inside and made their way to the changing area. "You don't need to fear problems sharing the regular baths with us," Chōkai said as the three cruisers all stripped down. "Since our human bodies are no different from your own, the mesonium that's in the mineral waters will actually present considerable health benefits to you. Given how much you spent time with people infected with ebony mesonium, I doubt you'll have issues bathing with me, Yū-chan. As for you, Ryū-chan, Tomobiki has always said to have a pretty high mesonium content in the surrounding atmosphere, so you should be fine, too."

Ryūnosuke blinked, then she sighed before she moved to undress. "Well, that's good. Hey, Yūko-san, where's Yui-san? She looking in on your classmates where the Foresters and the Mahora mages hid them or is she still in bed?"

"Actually, she was meditating when I last checked in on her early this morning," Yūko said as she picked up a towel, then set aside her glasses before she offered her arm to Chōkai, who obliged her before they stepped into the bathing area.

"No doubt, she's communicating to other Avalonians through that 'Dreamscape' power of theirs," Tenryū mused as she slipped off her yukata, then removed the patch from her left eye, revealing a glassy orb that was clearly sightless. She then winced as Ryūnosuke jerked on seeing that before she sighed. "Relax, Ryū-chan!" she scolded the beach café tomboy, giving her one of her devil-may-care smiles. "Yeah, I got no depth perception because I'm blind in one eye, but I can still fight."

That made Ryūnosuke blink before she sighed. "Sorry, man!" she apologized before she grasped the cruiser's hand, then moved to walk her into the bathing area. "It just doesn't show when you're dressed. That patch give you proper vision?"

"Yeah. Arisa-san jury-rigged it for me when I came back," the cruiser answered as they walked over to a bathing station, then moved to begin morning ablutions, Tatsuta following. "It's not so bad these days. I'm used to it."

"Some of the others are pretty much the same way," Tatsuta stated. "Tamiyo here just wants to look cool about it!"

Tenryū moaned. "Tadako!"

Laughter escaped Chōkai and her lover as they moved to wash each other down. Gazing at them for a moment, Ryūnosuke then blushed as she noted that the fourth of the Takao-class cruisers and the alumnus of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School appeared to be quite willing to pick up where they left off when they were in bed together in Chōkai's quarters. She turned away to concentrate on her own ablutions, earning her sympathetic looks from her new light cruiser friends, plus a pat on the shoulder from Tenryū. Getting a surprised look from the beach café tomboy, the elder of her class then leaned over to whisper, "She's too much of a stuffed shirt at times, Ryū-chan. Chiyo needs a chance to unwind and a nice person to unwind with. Even if that girl's a way worse pervert than Ataru was before he got shot back in time, she's good for her."

Ryūnosuke blinked before she sighed, then she nodded in understanding. When the idea of special boatswain's mates for the kanmusu finally percolated into the Tomobiki student grapevine — all thanks to what happened to Moroboshi Ataru, of course — the idea did possess quite the lewd connotation to it at first. Then again, was it really so wrong to ignore that sort of thing? After all, Chōkai, Tenryū and Tatsuta had been warships in their first lives before and during the Greater East Asia War, having known nothing different before they were forced back to became flesh-and-blood human girls with metahuman capabilities after they were summoned back to duty. The sheer shock of such a transition must have hit them hard to one extent or another, never mind the pressures of their forced duties to a nation that had become so desperate to chase off the Abyssals that it had gladly taken such a weird approach as making the kami of the Imperial Navy's warships live again to fight.

"No wonder Moroboshi wrote that letter," the tomboy then mused.

Both light cruisers smiled as they turned back to wash themselves down...

* * *

 _ **The destroyer dorms, that same moment...**_

"Are you sure you guys don't need any help?" Fubuki asked.

As Yūdachi began to slip into a peaceful sleep, Shiratsuyu and the others of their class shook their heads. "No, thanks, Fujiko-chan," the lead of her class assured her. "We can take it from here. Teitoku told us to take the morning to see she's alright."

Fubuki nodded. "Alright. Call if you need help. I'll see you later, Kodachi!"

"Poi...!" the wounded destroyer groaned as she waved her friend off.

Stepping out of her best friend's private room — the destroyer dorms at Yokosuka had been rebuilt a year ago to allow individual quarters for those who desired such, forever removing the need to have barrack rooms with multiple shipgirls sharing the same space — the first modern destroyer took a deep breath, then headed down the hallway to the room where Mutsuki lived; the three veterans of many fights since they came back in the first wave of shipgirl summonings after the Battle of Tōkyō Bay elected to have side-by-side rooms after the dorms were rebuilt. Looking inside, Fubuki smiled on seeing Mutsuki kneeling beside the bed, holding her just-returned sister, who was sleeping at this time. "How is she, Mutsuko?"

"She's still tired," the lead of her destroyer class said as she reached over to trace her fingers through Kisaragi's silky burgundy hair. "Her systems are coming back on line. Gayle-sensei helped out a lot after she got brought back from Tomobiki, but she still has to get used to being her own person again instead of being mentally slaved to some installation princess somewhere. I'm glad Ameretāt-san did what she did, but the recovery's going to be long." She then impishly grinned. "Look!"

She reached down to gently lift her sister's bare left arm, showing it was totally unblemished, not like it was when the call of the Abyss once more seized Kisaragi after she had been pulled out of Ironbottom Sound by Chōkai's fleet three years ago. Noting that, Fubuki sighed as she nodded in delight. "She got a dose of good mesonium this time. We'll have to remember that if one of us gets sunk in the future and winds up going through what she and Shōko-san went through."

"Oh, did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Shōko-san's been assigned with her sister to Sasebo," Mutsuki stated. "They'll form Fourth Carrier Division together with Taeko-san and they'll combine with Yoiko-sempai to form the Second Air Fleet." As Fubuki gasped, the crimson-haired tomboyish destroyer then asked, "Hey! Do you want to get assigned down there?! I mean, with Roberta-sempai back in Japan, we need good food for fuel after all!" She then conspiratorially winked at the younger destroyer.

Fubuki hummed. "Tempting! So tempting!"

"Cripes! I think we'll all head down there sooner or later!"

Both destroyers looked as the unofficial head of the 'tsundere division' came into the room. "Hey, Akemi-chan!" Fubuki said as Akebono came over to stand beside her. "How were things here while we were over in New Jersey?"

"Ah, same shit, different day," the profane eighth of the Ayanami-class destroyers said with a shrug. "How's she doing, Mutsuko?" she then asked as she gazed on the sleeping Kisaragi. "Nothing like last time, I hope."

"Oh, definitely not, Akemi-chan," Mutsuki said as she gazed fondly at her beloved sister. "I'm keeping a special eye out for it and my damage control parties are ready to go over and help out in case something weird happens." She then hummed. "Then again, with Costilow-sensei on his way here, I doubt we'll have a repeat of three years ago," she added, making Akebono blink in confusion as Fubuki nodded. "Seeing what he did for Harry-chan because of that teke teke..."

Akebono gaped. "Wait a sec'! Fujiko and 'Dachi took care of that thing...!"

"She somehow hid herself, Akemi-chan," Fubuki warned. "Waiting for the chance to gain enough power after we destroyed her to strike at Harry-chan to seek vengeance on us. Costilow-sensei sensed it, then got Purtell-sensei to remove it from him."

"'Purtell'...?" the lavender-haired destroyer began before her eyes widened. "Oh, Dimension Girl, you mean! The reality-warper who's part of the Mormon Church, right? She was kicking the asses of idiots from MACUSA out of the headquarters of that church in Utah when they tried to get at the records to erase the existence of all the no-maj-borns that got kidnapped and sent to Ilvermorny and the other schools before Roosevelt finally got rid of that shitty law in '42."

"How'd you know all that, Akemi?" Fubuki asked.

A snort escaped the other destroyer. "Remember the missionaries who came by to help out with poor relief last year?"

"Hai! They were really nice!" Mutsuko stated.

"Remember Elder Jake Burke?" Akebono then asked, earning her nods from the other destroyers. "His grandma was Amy Purtell's _**sister**_!" As Fubuki and Mutsuki gasped on hearing that, the lavender-haired destroyer shrugged. "He told me the whole story about her, especially the part about her fighting staleblood morons in MACUSA before the war." She winked. "Some of the elders who went up to help spread the word in Canada during the war got Foresters to use that Fidelius Charm thing to actually HIDE the damned records about Mormon no-maj-borns from MACUSA after the Übermenschen put those shitheads in the fucking hurt locker in '42. They STILL haven't figured out where the stuff's been hidden all these years!"

The other destroyers gaped. "Wait!" Fubuki breathed out. "The Family History Library where Purtell-sensei worked can be found on _**Wikipedia**_! And even to THIS DAY, they STILL can't see where those records are kept?!"

"That's what Jake told me, Fujiko," Akebono said, nodding.

Mutsuki and Fubuki exchanged looks, then they sighed, shaking their head at yet another show of magical imbecility when it came to normal people. "Magicals is SO stupid!" the former then growled in a plausible Yosemite Sam accent.

Fubuki and Akebono gaped at her, then both laughed...

* * *

 _ **A half-hour later...**_

Walking into her own room, Fubuki sighed as she stripped out of her sea uniform before putting on her physical training suit for a run around the Naval District's track field before she would go for a soak in the bathing area. Once she was cleaned up, she would then head to the offices of the Third Torpedo Squadron where she could get briefings on Abyssal movements. Once she was suited up, she walked out, then headed downstairs, being stopped when a voice called out, "Onē-chan!"

She turned as a longer-haired version of herself came running up to her, also dressed in a track suit for a time out on the field. "Ah! Hatsue-chan!" Fubuki called out as Hatsuyuki came over to squeeze her arm. "Sleep well last night?"

"I'm okay," the third of the Fubuki-class said as they headed down to the main floor. "How's Harry-chan? Ōyodo-san got messages from all over saying that Harry-chan and his classmates travelled from Tomobiki to that island near Hamburg and even going out to America when the news came about that legion of theirs coming back. Shouldn't he be in school?"

"Harry-chan heard about Kodachi being hurt off Atlantic City, then got phoenixes to take him and his friends over to see if she was alright," the older sister said as they stepped outside, moving right away towards the track field that filled the central area of the Naval District. Such had been installed after the former grounds of United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka had been completely rebuilt in the wake of the Japanese taking it over from the Americans after Blood Week, thus giving the kanmusu a sense of being at home after they were summoned. "Dumbledore-kōchōsensei got him and the others to go back to Hogwarts. I really wish Cass-sensei didn't teach them how to make use of phoenixes to travel around like that. Reiko-san was worried."

"Who's Cass...?" the destroyer known as Fukushima Hatsue asked before she perked as her intelligence officer whispered a reminder. "Naomi Haight-Ashbury?! That missile cruiser that came back thanks to Patricia-sensei and the other Ryūseizen?!"

"Hai, Long Beach," her sister affirmed with a nod, glad to see that the "tin can mafia" information net shared by destroyers worldwide was on the ball when it came to relaying news between different groups as soon as it came out.

A wary look came her way from Hatsuyuki. "Is she really that weird?"

Fubuki groaned, her eyes rolling. "Weirder!"

Both girls laughed, then they perked as the radar they received with their Kai Ni upgrades picked up two more of their class coming over from their own rooms. "Onē-chan! Hatsue-chan!" Shirakumo called out as she and Shinonome came over.

Fubuki smiled. The sixth and eighth of her class of destroyers were very recent summons; the girls known also as Fukushima Shiroko (Shinonome) and Fukushima Shinobu (Shirakumo) had returned to duty through the quarterdeck at Eta-jima four months ago. Looking like their older sister save for wildly different hair colours — Shirakumo had silver hair in the same simple ponytail Fubuki preferred while Shinonome had silvery-blonde hair in a pageboy style that gave her a bit of a tomboyish air — they were now also dressed in track uniforms; both destroyers had taken their big sister's lessons about personal health to heart as soon as they got back, always spending time on the field when they weren't in classes or doing drills on the bay. "Ohayō, Shiroko-chan! Shinobu-chan!" Fubuki greeted as the quartet of destroyers moved to form a diamond while they began to stretch themselves for a good run at flank speed around the track. "Any new intelligence?"

"Iie," Shirakumo stated. While she was seen as the nominal flagship of Destroyer Division Twelve with Shinonome and their other sister Murakumo, the white-haired destroyer always deferred to the fifth of their class whenever issues about operations against the enemy came up; the destroyer known also as Fukushima Mayako returned back to duty six months after Fubuki came back. "I guess a lot of the local bandits sensed that battle yesterday in Tomobiki and don't want to push it now."

"Especially with the news of Hisamura-shōsa's return to duty," Shinonome added. "If he's around and hunting the Abyssals behind the scenes, the other Thunder Company survivors that Negako-sensei didn't kill are busy out there, too. If I was any of the installation princesses, I'd be on the look out for them instead of trying to hurt people we can help protect."

Fubuki nodded...

...before she perked as a pleasant man's voice with a nice Midwest twang called out, "Getting some exercise, ladies?"

They immediately turned before they straightened themselves, then bowed formally to the near-immortal sixteenth president of the United States, who had just come over to them from the area of the guest dorms. "Mister President!" Fubuki called out in English as they saluted Abraham Lincoln. "Good morning, sir. Did you manage to get some breakfast this morning?"

"Fortunately, Commander Asano was more than pleased to prepare a decent meal for my friends and I when we visited her fine establishment after coming from an early morning meeting at Mahora to discuss the issue concerning Major Hisamura's public return to duty, Lieutenant Fukushima," Lincoln said, his melodic voice causing all four destroyers to shudder as they gazed in admiration at the former frontier lawyer who seemed to physically personify the pursuit of true freedom for all living beings regardless of differences. "So you and yours are getting a little morning constitutional in before performing duties."

"It keeps the doctor — in our case, Arisa-sensei — away, Mister President."

He laughed, nodding in approval. "I hear, Lieutenants, you're just recently returned to duty," he stated as he gazed on the two younger destroyers before him. "How are your classes? Learning all the proper lessons about this day and age?"

"Of course we are, sir," Shinonome said. "Didn't you yourself once say about education, Mister President, 'That every man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read the scriptures and other works, both of a religious and moral nature, for themselves'?" Her blonde eyebrow arched knowingly.

That made the vampire hunter laugh again. "Oh, yes! You must have got that from that collection of my anecdotes that was published some years back by Mister Blaisdell, Lieutenant." He winked at her. "Always remember to value your own history and the lessons you can learn from that." He then shook his head as he gazed off towards the harbour. "And may all of your friends who follow your Heavenly Sovereign do the same. Perhaps the pains of the past will be lifted away finally."

The destroyers turned to look...

"Oh, Kami-sama!" Hatsuyuki snarled on seeing the last of the Unryū-class aircraft carriers now moving to practice launching with her azusayumi. "Please don't tell me that idiot said something bad about your being here, sir!"

"She didn't say it in front of me, Lieutenant," Lincoln said. "She did say it in front of one of my special aides. Who took rather gross umbrage on that 'insult' towards me, then upbraided her quite publicly in front of her sisters and peers."

"You have special aides, sir?" Fubuki asked.

The former president nodded. "God let them come back to duty when I went to deal with the princess that tried to plug up Hampton Roads. They were pleased to help me put down that creature even if one of them didn't really understand at the time what caused the war that saw her rebuilt after loyalists pulled out of Gosport, leaving her a burnt wreck to her waterline."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **Monitor**_...and _**Virginia**_...?!" a wide-eyed Fubuki gasped as her sisters gushed at the idea of actually meeting the first two iron-clad warships that had actually engaged in a shooting battle with each other.

"You are slightly incorrect, Lieutenant."

People perked on hearing that lilting voice with its flowing mixed Virginia Tidewater and central New England accents, then they turned to stare wide-eyed at the girl about the same height as they, though she possessed a seasoned, weather-beaten look on her face. Said face was framed with reddish-brown hair and pierced with blue eyes. She was dressed in the dark uniform of a commissioned officer of the Union Navy during the Civil War, the silver eagle holding an anchor of a captain on her shoulder straps. The aura around her that shipgirls could perceive instantly made Fubuki and her sisters remember the many paintings they had seen depicting the duel in Hampton Roads in the late spring of 1861.

"If you are not Virginia...?" Fubuki began.

The adopted native of Massachusetts and Virginia smiled as she gave the destroyer a graceful bow. "Call me by my proper christened name, Lieutenant. I am _**Merrimack**_ ," the former screw frigate-turned-casemate ironclad declared.

"Or you can call her 'Mary', which is the nice name Ataru thought up for her," Lincoln added as his hazel eyes twinkled with amusement. "Captain Mary ferch Catesby Jones. I believe you know the good ladies' names here, Mother."

Merrimack blushed madly. "S-sir...!"

"Mister President."

Lincoln looked over, then he sighed. "Yes, Commander Kobayashi?"

Ōyodo sighed before she briefly gazed to her starboard on what looked like to be a near-contemporary of Merrimack's, with the same uniform and rank insignia. However, she had a more feisty look on her face, possessing dark brown hair which seemed to thin on her head under her kepi-like cover, her face pierced with dark yet very intelligent brown eyes. "Captain Ericsson just told me about the incident last night that Captain Jones was involved with concerning Lieutenant Komura." Here, the light cruiser gazed briefly out at the water where Aso was learning her trade under the guidance of her elder sister Katsuragi. "Admiral Gotō wishes to discuss the issue with you and propose a solution that might be to your liking."

"I assume Captain Itō might get involved in this, Commander," Lincoln mused as he gave the light cruiser a knowing look.

"I personally proposed it, Mister President. If she can't put some discipline into that loud-mouthed fool's keel, no one can," Monitor muttered, her voice flecked with the strong Swedish accent of her own late creator and spiritual father figure.

Lincoln sighed. "You don't know the lieutenant's history like I do, Brita."

"Respectfully, sir, this isn't commuting the death sentences of deserters," Merrimack stated as she gave the man who could have been her crew's commander-in-chief hadn't things fallen apart around Gosport like they did a knowing look.

The former president sighed. " _Understanding_ , Mary," he emphasized again.

The destroyers all gazed in confusion at him...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, the Rāmen Nekohanten, two hours before lunch...**_

"Ah! A true dish for the proletariat! Spasíbo, továrischi!"

Hearing that compliment from the silver-haired first of her class of dreadnoughts, the owner of one of the most popular eateries in Nishitōkyō blushed as one of the waitresses placed a bowl of Hakata-style rāmen before Gángut. "So what brings you here to Japan, Gángut-sama?" he then asked her. "You're assigned to the CIS Northern Fleet. Was there a convoy?"

"Net," Gángut affirmed. "I had the great pleasure of going on a date with Atarú Mútovich Morobósi when I helped escort a convoy to Taranto once. When I heard he was busy dealing with those nekul'túrnyje démony who loved to play around with the souls of people in this poor town, I came here to help put them before a firing squad. I stayed where his good sister Khiromí Mútovna now lives. I'll be heading back to Múrmansk soon enough. If there's an emergency, our Avalónka allies will be happy to transport me back to the Ródina quickly so I can get out there and get into the action without people being hurt."

People in the restaurant hearing this nodded. The few high school boys who were there stayed very silent; the reputation of the first of her class of dreadnought was well-known and no one wanted to get on Gángut's bad side if they insulted Moroboshi Ataru, especially in the wake of that incredible fight on the Tarōzakura Hill the previous afternoon. The silver-haired shipgirl also had her TT-30 automatic pistol with her in a holster on her right hip. A popular video on YouTube these days was a friendly shoot-off between Gángut and Missouri's sister Wisconsin during the national matches run by America's National Rifle Association, showing off the similarities and the differences between the TT-30 and the M1911A1. Gángut's marksmanship was seen as so good that she became the first foreign shipgirl to be declared one of the President's Hundred; she proudly wore that marksmanship badge on her dress uniform, much to the delight of Americans and Russians alike.

"That must have not been much of a date."

Of course, there had to be an idiot in the crowd...

"Kanzaki, you moron!" Marubeya Momoe snarled as several of her classmates shook their heads in pity.

Gángut blinked before she turned to glare intently at the shuddering man seated off to one corner. Gazing himself at Kanzaki Ryūha, the owner of the Nekohanten took a deep breath. "Forgive me, Comrade Captain, but would you please take that _**thing**_ out of this restaurant before you put him against a firing squad?" he then sweetly asked, making Ryūha squawk in horror before he stared wide-eyed at the older man. "You boys from Tomobiki High are complete _**idiots**_ at times! Your precious alien brat won't ever be allowed back on Earth! Stop trying to wish for something you can't have and get on with your life! Or go die in some dark corner somewhere! People in this country have NO TIME to deal with the likes of you!"

" _ **IT WASN'T HER FAULT!**_ "

"You are right about that."

Eyes locked on Gángut. "Gángut-sama..." a Butsumetsu Girl's sophomore gasped.

Smirking as she waved the shuddering owner down, the dreadnought got to her feet, then turned to walk over and stare intently into Ryūha's eyes, making him stiffen in fright as the aura of the old battleship washed over him like some tsunami. "The only thing Lum Invád'rovna Rédet is guilty of is being too NAÏVE!" Gángut said as she pulled out her pipe and put it into her mouth, one of her faeries immediately coming out of her jacket to light it up with a torch. "She was coddled by her parents far too much! She was never disciplined properly whenever she went and hurt people, like she always did with Ran Makotóvna Arúka that caused her to come here to seek VENGEANCE on her 'friend' by attacking Tarúsha in hopes of sucking his youth out and KILLING him!" As Ryūha gaped in disbelief at that assertion, Gángut shook her head. "Lum Invád'rovna was quite the intelligent and conniving girl in one aspect! She knew she LIED from the start concerning her 'marriage' to Tarúsha, so she needed to cultivate many allies to solidify her claim on him and get away from her former fiancé. What she didn't realize was that there were forces active on a dozen planets — INCLUDING MOTHER EARTH! — that knew of the lie and were moving to expose it! Not to mention expose those nekul'túrnyje rabotorgóvtsy from Phentax Two who loved to treat our wonderful Avalónka allies like they were mere _**robots**_! She knew how much the founder of the 'church' set up in her name was stalking her! He ordered the deaths of FIVE MILLION innocent people just to 'protect' her!" She shook her head. "The rest of the world understands the truth. Why, especially after Tarúsha removed that dream-demon's influence on you, do you not see?!"

He shuddered. "He didn't have to go that far...!"

"Yes, he did!" she snarled. "He was being escorted by a very honourable and kind warrior to help free Negáko Khirósukova from his subconscious mind when they were both attacked by an army's worth of bandits that made the Mongols look like nursery school bullies! Given that his friend at the time was too distracted and he couldn't get to safety, he had to fight! That is when this Keséjry fellow came to give Tarúsha an offer he couldn't realistically refuse!" She shook her head. "Tell me, young one: If YOU were in that position, would you have helped a new comrade stay ALIVE in whatever way you could?!"

He jolted before a hurt scowl crossed his face, then he slapped some bills on the table before he walked out of the restaurant. People watched him go, then the owner shook his head. "They just don't want to understand, Gángut-sama. That's how much these yōma you helped kill yesterday probably affected them all. I don't feel any different even if I had a bad dream last night about Ataru-kun coming along in that guyver form of his to hurt us for our putting him down all the time..."

Gángut sighed. "It is best that there is a separation, comrades. He has no inhibitions when he puts that armour on. He can kill anyone who dares cross his path and is seen right then and there as an enemy. Even someone he once loved."

She glanced over to one corner of the room, where Ataru's former girlfriend now sat, a sad look on her face...

* * *

 _ **A half-hour later...**_

"Why can't he just go back to being normal...?"

Hearing that moaned question from Miyake Shinobu, Gángut sighed. Dear God, this girl had it bad! "Why are you still pining for Tarúsha, Sinóbu Tosjóbovna?" the dreadnought asked as she reached over to squeeze the shoulder of the woman who had been Ataru's long-time girlfriend until Redet Lum came into the situation and upset everything. "You made it clear long ago that you desired normalcy. Tarúsha cannot give that to you even if he wished to do so. Da, he cares for you..."

" _ **HE DOES?!**_ "

Gángut leaned back from that shout, then she sighed before she fixed her companion with a warning look. "But he is tired of you behaving like that nekul'túrnaja i ègoistíchnaja shljúkha he was born from," she then cautioned, making Shinobu wince. "If you stopped trying to judge him for everything he does even when it doesn't affect you, he might be more friendly to you. And you wouldn't need to fear for your life should he need that armour to go deal with a threat. Do keep that in mind, child."

Shinobu sighed. "I'm afraid to ask what that means."

"Jóiko Khirósiovna Itó — Yonaga to you — uses the term 'yūjo' to describe her."

A visible wince shook the younger woman's shoulders. "Oba-san's not that bad!"

"You know of Tarúsha's twin brother?"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

Shinobu stopped to stare wide-eyed at Gángut. " _ **ATARU-KUN HAD A TWIN BROTHER?!**_ "

The dreadnought sighed as she sensed passers-by stop and stare in shock at them. "Must you be so LOUD?!" she said as she gazed at Ataru's former girlfriend while some of the people nearby began to hiss at each other as they instantly discussed what they just overheard. "Da, he has a brother! Who's quite alive and well, by the way...even if he lives on a planet on the other side of the _**galaxy**_ from here!" As Shinobu's jaw dropped, Gángut waved her to accompany her up the Hōya-dōri towards the Moroboshi home. "Kaéru Mútovich — that is Tarúsha's twin brother's name — was the favoured child of the shljúkha and her coward of a husband. He developed quite early in comparison to Tarúsha himself. It was once agreed between Tarúsha's parents and his grandmother Nagáivakai Tenitíovna Morobósi that Tarúsha would be raised by her and Kaéru raised by his parents. Sadly, an accident when Kaéru was three saw him 'die' with no one available to help save him." She slipped her pipe into her mouth. "In truth, he was found by two travellers from a planet named Nagussa and taken to an doctor to be healed, then he was adopted. Since he 'disappeared', the shljúkha began treating Tarúsha as she did until he decided — after he had been taken to Okusei in the wake of nearly being forced to marry Lum Invád'rovna — he would have no more of it."

"Doesn't Kaeru-kun want to come back to Earth?!" Shinobu snapped. "That's _**kidnapping**_! How could he tolerate that?!"

"He's known no other life, Sinóbu Tosjóbovna," Gángut finished. "Remember, he was only THREE when he was taken to Nagussa. There, he was raised by two very decent people, got a life for himself and even has a very attractive wife which he serves alongside in the Nagussan Defence Forces aboard an exploration star cruiser. Why on Earth would he want to come back to a planet that is a total MYSTERY to him, much less seek out people who he really doesn't remember at all?"

"Ataru-kun should have told his parents about Kaeru-kun!"

"Why should he?"

Shinobu stopped, staring in horror at the dreadnought. "He has an obligation..."

"Filial piety must be EARNED first!" Gángut cut her off. "That was the primary lesson this Nengmékhi fellow wanted to teach Tarúsha once he was taken away from his 'wife' and transported to Okusei. He had to learn what sort of environment he had REALLY been raised in to pull himself away from it and be a better person once he could really think for himself. It was easy for Tarúsha to do that once all the idiots who tried to force him into being what he really didn't want to be were effectively forced out of the way. That shljúkha decided that since Tarúsha was not his 'dead' brother, she would treat him like some unwanted and diseased leper. 'You be sure to come home for the holidays.' Wasn't that what she told Tarúsha when he defeated Lum and wound up 'engaged' to her?" As Shinobu winced, sensing that the dreadnought would gladly heap abuse all over her for effectively abandoning Ataru at that moment of incredible triumph which started the year's worth of madness that had rocked Tomobiki, Gángut shook her head. "When she made that choice, the shljúkha lost whatever right she had to claim any respect from Tarúsha. Since he refused to make her stop treating his son like that, the shljúkha's husband lost whatever respect Tarúsha once held for him. There was no love between any members of that family in that place for YEARS. It was all a farce to make people believe all was 'normal' in that house so as to hide the abuse! On Noukiios and among our Avalónka allies, that is grounds for DEATH to the abuser! Tarúsha had a full YEAR to come to understand that. He learned his lessons well!" She smirked as her copper brown eyes then focused on a point just ahead of her, she taking a pull on her pipe.

Shinobu turned...

...then she shook her head on seeing a pale-faced Moroboshi Kinshō standing there, looking as if she had just been stabbed in the heart. Standing beside her was a visibly wincing Miyake Kimiki. "You knew about this?" Shinobu then asked as she gazed at her mother, ignoring the cycling emotions crossing the face of her former boyfriend's mother at what she had just overheard.

Something she now realized that Gángut WANTED Ataru's mother to hear at last.

"About Kaeru-chan's 'death' all those years ago, yes," Kimiki said as she gazed upon Kinshō for a moment, then she shook her head. "I am relieved he's alive and well, but disappointed that Ataru-kun refused to say a word about it."

"Again, I ask this, Gospozhá Mijaké: WHY should he have done that?!" Gángut wondered, smirking on seeing Kinshō wince at the idea of her "only" son willingly striving to hurt her like that...and with the one thing that was guaranteed to hurt both of Ataru's parents in the long term. "Why the hell should Tarúsha even care one bit for ANYONE in this pathetic pit of fools and madmen?!" She smirked as the growing crowd of bystanders all winced on hearing that harsh statement. "Even if there were plans all along to deal with the inoplanétnyje mónstry — after all, the members of the Pérvaja Kanádskaja Specializírovannaja Boevája Zvenó have been on the planet for at least FOUR years! — Tarúsha did his best under the circumstances to make sure we wouldn't be invaded by Lum's people. Did you ever truly THANK him for that?! Perhaps go forth and strove to understand what might have been going on inside his heart and mind because of his behaviour?! Perhaps discover what he had been tricked to do on his sixth birthday to literally acquire a second SOUL inside his mind for a decade?!" She shook her head. "Even if those nekul'túrnyje démony are to blame for much of it, they were always influenced by your own conscious and subconscious choices. Tarúsha learned that very well from his TRUE family, woman! Namely Negáko Khirósukova..."

" _ **HE'S MY SON! THAT THING IS**_ **NOT** _ **HIS SISTER!**_ "

Gángut smirked knowingly as she gazed with veiled amusement at the now visibly quaking Kinshō. "A pity that Tarúsha spent all the inheritance money he got from his late grandmother while he was in Taranto..."

" _ **WHAT?! HOW DARE HE TAKE**_ **MY** _ **MONEY AWAY FROM ME?! I WISH I NEVER HAD HIM!**_ "

"Then you will _**grow old and die alone**_ , Gospozhá _**Jamagutí**_!" the dreadnought vowed, calling Kinshō by her maiden name.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

A very pale Kinshō collapsed to her knees. "Who will take care of me when I'm old and grey...?" she moaned.

Gángut stared at her, then smirked before she moved to head up the street. As people who had watched this all began to hiss at each other, Kimiki shook her head while Shinobu sighed, running off after the dreadnought...

* * *

 _ **Minutes later...**_

"You did that on purpose."

"Da, I did."

"Why?!"

"Because the more people see her for what she is, the sooner she can no longer be a threat to Tarúsha, Sinóbu Tosjóbovna," Gángut calmly stated as she moved to sit down at a bench at a park two blocks north of Tomobiki High School. "He does not totally hate her to the point where he would kill her in an instant if he desired such, but he doesn't want her to have any influence on his life or his sisters' lives. Da, I know now about the poor girls those nekul'túrnyje rabotorgóvtsy kidnapped during the time Lum Invád'rovna and Ran Makotóvna had their little clone gun war." At Shinobu's surprised look, the dreadnought smiled. "Khirósha told me about them. You know about the film-clones that were allowed to live finally?"

A smirk crossed Shinobu's face. "Of course! One of them is my _**sister**_!"

Both women laughed, then Gángut sighed as she enjoyed her pipe while both gazed out at the beautiful cityscape around them. There was still a slight stench from the attack by Iranian-built fembots on several of Shinobu's classmates emanating from the direction of Tomobiki High, but it wasn't grossly offensive to her. "Is she good for him?" Shinobu then asked. "Roberta-san, I mean. Given how pushy Lum was at times, I don't want Ataru-kun to go through that a second time."

"We are magical beings even if 'muggles' brought us back as we are now, thus subject to certain magical laws," Gángut stated. "Robérta Adónisovna owes Tarúsha a Life Debt for his saving her from that installation princess that tried to cut off Sicily from the mainland five months ago." As Shinobu winced on hearing that — thanks to Tomobiki's blanket exception to the Statute of Secrecy, she knew what THAT term meant — the old dreadnought added, "She's good for him, as he is for her. Da, I would have loved to be his wife, but that wasn't in the cards; I had already returned to the Ródina when that incident occurred and they began living together. Besides, I'm not as good of a cook as Robérta is." Here, Gángut smirked.

Shinobu laughed on hearing that, then she shook her head before she gazed to the sky. "Strange. I find myself missing Lum right now. Not to mention Ten-chan and Ran-san and Rei-san and the others. Was it necessary to drive them off?"

"Da. The Abyssals actually arose in part because so many aliens were here. Especially the ones from Phentax Two."

That made the younger woman shudder. Much that she did find herself truly missing the aliens that she had interacted with over the last year, she still resented the fact that Lum's father didn't think that none of the people from Earth targeted by the Church of Lum to "contribute" to their "holy book" deserved to know about such a flagrant violation of their private lives, never mind the twisting of their words to make Shinobu's former boyfriend appear to be a literal devil figure. "Why?"

"There is a very ancient treaty that has been seen as in effect for over twenty-five millennia," the dreadnought stated. "You know the story of the immortal who lives on Rjúgen? The one who created the Natsístskije sverkhljúdi?"

"Von Taserich-taishō, you mean?"

"Da. All those years ago, démony from other dimensions that could easily access our own — most of them being the ancestors of the beasts I helped kill yesterday — tried to turn this planet into their private hell. Thanks to the Zhemchúzhina Síla found by Déannetta Daniílovna Réjborn in 1889, he was empowered to deal with those démony, around the same time that Vladímir Rússalovich Taychéshko was made immortal as well. When the démony were driven back, the 'End Treaty' was agreed to. By that time, most démony had become addicted to the worship of human followers; to cut them off totally would slaughter them wholesale and he didn't want that on his hands since most démony at the time simply wanted to live on Earth in peace and not be dominated by their own evil rulers. In return for him not killing them wholesale, the démony agreed that none with mezón in their blood would be harmed." She smirked. "The Niphentaxians unknowingly violated the End Treaty by bringing their slaves here. The blood of slain slaves thanks to various conflicts and the brutality of their treatment by their masters ultimately created the morskíe mónstry our Canadian, Australian and New Zealander magical dragon-hunting comrades had to go after in the Great War and the Great Patriotic War." At Shinobu's confused look, Gángut added, "You call them 'Ryūseizen'."

"Oh...!" Silence fell over the scene, then Shinobu blinked. "Wait! What about Hiromi-san and the others?! My sister?! If people think that it was the Avalonians who ultimately unleashed the Abyssals on everyone...!"

"The blame will be put on the Niphentaxians' shoulders, Sinóbu Tosjóbovna," the dreadnought declared. "Not to mention the other aliens who came to Earth seeking to kill innocent people just because they developed metahuman powers yet were not 'magical'." She made finger-quotes with one hand on saying that. As Shinobu gaped in horror at the older woman, Gángut sighed. "If the Abyssals didn't slaughter them wholesale, they were eliminated by the Men In Black before they themselves were wiped out some years ago. The last got removed thanks to Negáko Khirósukova and our comrades from Jidzíba..."

"'They Who Must Never Be Named'?"

"Da, same people."

Shinobu shuddered before she laughed as she recalled what she overheard Redet Ten mutter to several members to Lum's Stormtroopers in Class 2-4 about natives of the planet Yiziba and their constantly living in a state of perpetual chaos fuelled by metahuman battles that seemed never to stop; that conversation had been had at the Onishuto Medical Centre in the wake of the hospitalization of many of the alien guests to Ataru's and Lum's "wedding" which got crashed by the great sky dragon Nengmek'i. Seeing how much even someone as seemingly tough as Lum's father have panic attacks on even the mention of the NAME of the third world of Kaeyu made the days of the girls in the class; seeing that, they realized there WERE people out there who didn't bow to the Urusians and had the power and will to put down Lum's people with insanely terrible ease.

To know that a lot of the current generation were _**Earth-born**_...!

"That's good," Shinobu then breathed out. "God only knows, we've suffered enough. If what happened over the last year was any proof that no one's ready to deal with aliens living among us, I don't know what could convince people of it." She shook her head in sadness. "I used to think Ryūha-kun was one of the SMARTER people in our peer group. To believe that even after Ataru-kun destroyed Mujaki, then got rid of those other demons yesterday at the Tarōzakura..."

Gángut shrugged. "From what Tarúsha told me during our time together — added on what intelligence the little comrades in the Tikhookeánskij Flot have gathered from people who did watch over you from beyond the town's borders and that magical 'wall' put up to keep the inoplanétnyje mónstry penned in here and ignorant of what Negáko Khirósukova was doing — you all came to accept the strangeness as 'normal'. Now that Tarúsha and others are moving to make a new normal for themselves, the people left behind feel as if they have lost control over their lives. What that one boy and the others who think like him don't realize is that nothing will be tolerated anymore that would bring such undisciplined idiots back to this planet again, not until we're able to match them equally. Our Avalónka allies are moving now to prepare something that can take the place of what our adopted Jidzíbaka friends set up." She shook her head. "Never thought I'd ever become a _kosmonávt_...!"

That made Shinobu gape at her...

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, an hour before lunch...**_

"My God! Tom Beckett?! Is that you?!"

Hearing that voice with its flat accent, MGySgt Thomas Beckett turned...then he gaped in shock on seeing the raven-haired man with the dark eyes now approaching the front gate to the naval complex on the Sasebo waterfront. "Merlin! Major Costilow?!" he exclaimed on recognizing the Cosmic Arch-Mage even if the Salem native was in the modern Army Combat Uniform, the badges of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment of the Bay State's national guard formation on his arms and the oak leaf of a major on his chest epaulette. Catching himself from staring too much at a man who had quite the mixed reputation among American magicals even these days, the Chicago native then braced himself to attention, giving the Bay Stater a proper salute; not only was Costilow of higher rank, he was also a Medal of Honour winner thanks to the Battle of Toronto. "Welcome back, Major! We got the news of what happened to you and the Legion, but couldn't believe it...!"

William Costilow sighed as he returned the magical naval infantry soldier's salute. "Oh, good God Almighty!" he groaned — he just HATED the damned stupid folderol that soldiers put themselves through all the time — before he stuck out his hand, receiving a firm handshake from the veteran of the Pacific side of the Wars of Liberation. "Can't believe you're still in uniform after all this time, Tom! I'd figure you would have retired to be a private tutor somewhere to save people from Ilvermorny!"

"As even we in the Seventh Division say it all the time, sir, 'Once a Marine, always a Marine'," Beckett said with a chortle, then he waved the investor and former rum-runner towards the main base gate to get him inside. "What brings you here so soon after you got back from wherever you went to after the Battle of Toronto? I'd figure that you'd all want to rest and relax, not to mention take time to absorb all the changes that have happened among no-majs in the last seven decades."

"No rest for the wicked, I'm afraid," the cosmically-powered "arch-sorcerer" warned as he drew out a freshly-made DOD identification card to show to the Marine standing guard at the main gate. "I heard from the house elves watching over my house that you people finally caught up to television some years back," he said as he returned the smiling lance corporal's salute. "And with these 'satellite channels' we can get now, the news gets out very fast these days."

"Something wrong?"

"Commander Yamamoto's adopted son had an onryō — a 'teke teke', I think it was called — secretly bonded to him in hopes of taking him by surprise one of these days and killing him." As Beckett gaped in shock at that revelation, Costilow stopped to take a look around with his meta-senses. "Fujiko and Kodachi managed to subdue it when it tried to attack young Harry years ago, but they didn't remove the spiritual bond that had formed between it and him because it thought he was an easy target to attack given his being adopted by the leader of the local shipgirls. It allowed that thing to reform itself to try again, no doubt feeding off the magical energy of Hogwarts when he started attending there last fall. Amy managed to pull it into the open to allow me to dispose of it. He's cleansed now, but if that's the 'normal' of things these days, I'm going to go through these bases with a fine-toothed comb to make sure no other surprises don't crop up and start making things more difficult."

The veteran of the Wars of Liberation sighed, shaking his head. Much that he was proud of his own skills when it came to detecting threats, he knew he didn't have the sheer cosmic levels of perception possessed by the Bay Stater who had once been seen as the most evil person alive by the Magical Congress and the law enforcement arm of the Department of Magic in the 1930s. "Not surprising. Two of the aircraft carrier shipgirls — Lieutenant Commanders Matsunaga Ryōko and Kakuta Junko; Ryūjō and Jun'yō respectively — are accredited onmyōji with the Eight Commanderies. We've had a storm of issues come down on everyone ever since the general war began. Fortunately, we've had friendly yōkai come to help out as well."

Costilow nodded behind him. "Like that tengu at that store a block from the gate?"

"Aye, sir, he's one."

The metahuman took a deep breath. "Great...eh?!"

He seemed to focus in the general direction of the home where the Richardson family lived two kilometres from the base boundaries for a moment, then he raised his hand, allowing energy to billow around his fingers for a moment. People who had doing their best to keep clear of the Cosmic Arch-Mage — while still paying close attention to the man given what he was and how he had come to be at Sasebo today — all stopped to look as something seemed to be pulled out of the air...!

" _ **ZONA!**_ "

" _ **MUUU!**_ "

Beckett gaped on seeing what looked like four-inch tall super-deformed versions of battleship Mutsu and battleship Arizona before her remarkable "upgrade" two days before thanks to one of the nurses who had been victimized by one Murata Eiichi. As the two beings plopped into the palm of Costilow's hand, the Cosmic Arch-Mage then waved his free hand over them, allowing a scrying pentagram to form so he could scan them. While both Minimu and Smolzona looked around in confusion — the last thing the two miniaturized shipgirls had been doing was snacking on food on the kitchen table in the Richardson home — strange glyph-like symbols then appeared before Costilow's eyes, making him breathe out. "Water sprites."

That made Minimu and Smolzona turn and look up to see the man who had just taken them away from nice snacks. While the former pouted at being deprived of food, the latter gave the Cosmic Arch-Mage a glare, which earned her nothing more than an arched eyebrow from the native of Salem in return, as if he was saying to her, " _You have to be_ _ **kidding**_ _me, right?!_ "

"Water sprites?" a voice asked from nearby, making Beckett look over as a co-worker approached. "Are they dangerous, sir?"

Costilow gazed at Lieutenant Doug Papich, who had come up to meet the investor and "arch-sorcerer" once he spotted his company's senior NCO speaking with the man. "Not necessarily, Lieutenant," the Bay Stater answered as he gazed once more at the tiny creatures now standing on his hand. "From my experience, these things form when the living spirit of the oceans is touched by the dreams of an innocent child on or near the waters, then said creature latches onto the child as a protector. Believe it or not, the Japanese got it right on a lot of things when it comes to spiritual energy and how it interacts with mortal things. Who brought these things here, Tom? You seem to have the skinny of what's been happening at this place."

Beckett took a deep breath. "The admiral's daughter, Major."

That made the Cosmic Arch-Mage blink. "Is she studying magic?"

"No, sir, she's a no-maj through and through. She is friends with Commander Yamamoto's son and is immune to any attempt at memory-modifications since the base and all affiliated are under the purview of the Seventh Marine Division." As Costilow shook his head, Beckett added, "She was doing a class project about the summoning process, then tried it out. The replica of her stepmother came first, with Lieutenant Owings' double following. There are several more in Miss Richardson's 'fleet'."

"I take it she knows NOT to do this again, Tom," Costilow said as he gave his friend a warning look.

"I'm sure if you tell her that, she'll listen, sir."

Hearing that made the Cosmic Arch-Mage try not to moan. _Magicals!_ he spat out to himself, wishing that stupid attitude the Chicago native just displayed had long been bred out of people in the seven decades that Mister Mystical and his friends from the Liberty Legion had been gone. _How in the name of God can they be so LAZY while being so damn POWERFUL?!_

"Right...!"

* * *

 _ **Nearby...**_

"Whoa! That's really _**Mister Mystical**_!"

A gaggle of destroyers, both Japanese and American, were gaping in awe at the sight of the Bay Stater standing nearby. The crowd of shipgirls were now standing at the windows of the base cafeteria foyer as they watched what was happening outside. "Aye, it's him!" Kidd breathed out, nodding in appreciation. "Wonder what got the good wizard upset just now."

"Looks like those mini-versions of Mutsu and Ari got yanked out of Jane's house and the major wants to make sure they're safe," Chauncey stated. "It was kinda pretty weird that Jane was able to summon them using a model of the chamber here."

"Can you read what the major's saying, Indi-chan?" Kagerō wondered.

The four Fletcher-class girls of Destroyer Division 96 concentrated. "He calls them 'water sprites', Minami," Black then explained. "He said they're harmless because they're bound to kids, but he doesn't want Jane doing it again."

"They're still kami," Oyashio noted as she crossed her arms. Like all the others in Torpedo Squadron Two and its component destroyer divisions, the shipgirl known as Yuhara Chikako just adored Jane Richardson. "Even if they're touched by children like young Jane-chan, Costilow-sensei should be more respectful of them. Just pulling Minimu and Smolzona away like that..."

"Everyone says Professor Costilow has almost the same level of cosmic awareness as Major Raeburn's friend from Russia, Chikako," Bullard explained. "He's probably seen some serious shit when he was fighting Übermenschen during the war."

The other destroyers hummed before Kidd perked. "Incoming!"

A flash of light then appeared right in front of William Costilow.

"Oh, hell...!" Black moaned...

* * *

 _ **Outside...**_

"Excuse me! Don't you think that's a little rude?!"

Costilow blinked, then found himself staring at what appeared to be a local girl in a T-shirt with some sports team insignia on the chest and blue dungarees now standing there, fists to hips as she tried to glare the older man down. "Tom?"

Beckett sighed. "Miss Kim, this is Major William Costilow," he moved to do introductions. "He's Mister Mystical of the Liberty Legion. Did you, Harumi or your friends from the island hear about their return?"

Kim Ŭijin blinked before her eyes went wide as that code-name sank into her. Her meson-charged magic instantly surging up to flood her body from head to toe as she recalled her time on Nakanotori-shima and how much the mean men of Unit 731 wanted to prepare her and her fellow would-be Obscurials to confront someone like this, a being who seemed capable of challenging the best the Black Dragon Society could fling at him and tossing them aside like rag-dolls. Quickly forcing down the urge to melt into pure energy and lash out — which would have been beyond dishonourable as the man before her had done nothing really wrong even if he had kidnapped Jane's little friends — she bowed her head, her body shuddering.

"She's an Obscurial?"

Ŭijin yelped as Beckett sighed. "She almost became one, sir. Remember when I told you about Ganges Island?"

"That camp the Japanese created to transform kids into beings like Clarence Barebone, you mean."

Another nod from the veteran of the Wars of Liberation. "Aye, sir. Miss Kim and many others were trapped in a cave by a Fidelius and wards anchored to mesonium crystals when we hit the place while you guys fought the Battle of New York. We couldn't find them, but their magic helped them take control of the mesonium. They got out of the cave, then elected to live there where they wouldn't have been bothered by anyone magical or no-maj...until the Abyssals drove them off."

"I see," the Cosmic Arch-Mage breathed out before he smiled as he lowered his hand to allow Ŭijin to take Minimu and Smolzona in hand. "I trust, Miss Kim, you're friends with young Miss Richardson?" he then asked.

She gasped, then rapidly nodded her head. "N-ne, Sŏnsaeng-nim...!"

"Good! Make sure you make her understand to not do that sort of thing again when it comes to these little ones," Costilow warned. "She was very lucky that she just brought water sprites in. She could have drawn in much worse. Alright?"

She blinked, then nodded again. "N-ne, Sŏnsaeng-nim!"

With a flash of energy, she teleported away. "Damn! Just like Heather was at Independence Day," Costilow breathed out.

Beckett gazed warily at him, then shook his head...

* * *

 _ **Kōkai Junior High School, that moment...**_

Yonaga was trying not to scowl as she gazed on the accursed contraption in her hand called an "iPad", it relaying a message from Gotō Kiichi concerning an incident the previous evening between a fleet mate and one of the Rail-Splitter's aides-de-camp. Noting also the e-mails from Hōshō and Ōyodo concerning the same issue, the fifth of the Yamato-class could only snarl as she tossed the tablet onto her futon before reaching over to take up the cup of soothing tea that Hyūji Makoto had created for her and sip from it. Shaking her head, she took a deep breath as she moved to find her centre and calm down, achieve the proper state of zanshin before she would have to confront the newest member of her overall command...

...and then proceed to destroy her very heart and soul.

Hopefully without costing the poor creature her LIFE at the same time.

Much to the seventh carrier's personal shock, that had been Gotō's direct order.

And as a true loyal servant of the Heavenly Sovereign...

...Yonaga would obey that order.

Much that she personally loathed what she was about to soon do.

"Bad?"

She looked over to where Makoto was seated by her work desk, a worried look on the Ōsaka native's face. "What can you tell me about Komura Asami-san, Makoto-san?" the carrier then asked. "Aircraft carrier Aso, seventh of the Unryū-class."

That made Makoto gargle before she moaned. "Oh, Kami-sama! HER?!"

"I was briefed on some things about her by Chiyoko-san after I was posted here. Not the whole story about her, but the general warning about her right-wing leanings and how much the militarists fawn over her. What do you know?"

The track star of Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School shook her head, trying to not look physically ill. "She probably wouldn't have issues bedding any of my friends whenever the hypnosis takes us, Yoiko-san. She's THAT much of a right-wing nut! She hates the idea that we're so dependent on gaijin like the Americans, the Canadians, the Russians and especially the Koreans to keep us fed and safe from the Abyssals! Since all the shipgirls get the right to vote in elections after six months of duties, she's constantly supported candidates that won the confidence of the uyoku-dantai. Of course, her vote then gets thrown away since NO ONE would want the support of those loons! It's the kiss of death to anyone's political career!"

Yonaga's eyebrow arched. "We're permitted to participate in elections?"

The younger woman nodded. "Of course. Once the war's over, shipgirls could even run for office once they're formally released from duty in the military. Japan was the second country to allow shipgirls full legal rights, right after Canada did," Makoto affirmed before she shook her head. "Foreign shipgirls really hate working with Asami-san and she's seldom deployed even if she's been back for over three years now." A curious look then crossed her face. "Why's she being sent here? I thought Gotō-taichō was intent on keeping her in Yokosuka so he can keep her under a tight leash."

"Asami-san made a very public protest at the presence of Lincoln-daitōryō being in Japan in front of one of his aides-de-camp," the carrier responded. "Captain Mary ferch Catesby Jones. The screw frigate-turned-casemate ironclad Merrimack."

That made the Ōsaka native blink before she gaped. "Merrimack?!" She then perked as something came to her. Despite her isolation from mainstream society over the past two years, she was uncommonly informed about affairs concerning shipgirls, mostly thanks to Arisugawa Yui and her links with other Niphentaxian observers that had been watching the Abyssal War. "Oh, that's right! She and Monitor came back when Lincoln-daitōryō destroyed the Roads Princess three years ago!"

"The same. Mary-san didn't care at all for Asami-san's insulting the president's honour, going so far as to blame him for allowing the creation of the supposedly standing American policy of 'total and unconditional surrender' that's been said to drive their war-fighting strategy since the days of the Civil War. She even tried to coerce Mary-san into turning against her principal and raise the Rebel Flag again, making her recall her last crew's loyalty to Jefferson Davis' regime that rose up against Washington in 1861." Yonaga chuckled before sipping her tea. "The good captain did not care to be reminded of her small involvement in that thrice-accursed conflict, then personally dressed the lieutenant down in quite smart fashion; that was Hoshie-sensei's observation." As Makoto gaped — anything that impressed the likes of the mother of all aircraft carriers had to be something spectacular indeed — the large carrier took a deep breath. "Due to the nature of the incident, Aso-dono and her sister Katsuragi-dono are now assigned to the Second Air Fleet; they will form a carrier division once Aso-dono is seen as ready to go to sea." She shook her head. "If I don't demand she commit seppuku for embarrassing Tennō like that!"

That made the track star gasp. "Yoiko-san!"

"Makoto, please! I'm fully aware of how Asami-san was 'employed' during the war."

Makoto stopped before she gaped. "If you know what to do with her, why ask me for MY opinion?"

"Two things. One: I needed to know how well-informed you and your friends are. Once 'W' Commando and the Tōmagun heal your friends, they will all most likely volunteer to be special boatswain's mates to all of us. The sooner they are able to understand the nature of their duties and how they can support us, the better for all involved." Yonaga smirked as Makoto blushed at that compliment. "Two: Being a civilian and a normal-born human, you have a different way of seeing these things that I. When I presented myself to him, Tennō commanded me to do my best to adjust to modern Japanese society. Yes, demanding Asami-san's death sounds incredibly harsh, especially since she clearly suffers from a profound case of post-traumatic stress disorder, to say anything of overwhelming guilt being the 'test' ship for that madness that struck the Navy General Staff when the idea of 'special attack units' came up before the Americans moved to liberate the Philippines."

She shook her head before taking another deep breath. "I have been ordered by Teitoku to use any means to break and rebuild Asami-san to make her a proper fighting unit of the Navy. I am granted full liberties in that regard to do as I see fit. Much that I personally understand how many atrocities can be committed in war — and indeed, the 'kamikaze' thing was as much an atrocity committed on the people of Japan by the monsters who tricked Shōwa Tennō into supporting that war as the crimes done to other nations by members of Unit 731 and others at that time — we MUST maintain a moral centre in THIS war. If we do not do that, how can we entice those remaining ship-spirits who have yet to answer the call of duty back to duty? Given the standing threat of the aliens and our future duties out in space, how can we not do otherwise?"

The younger woman took a moment to consider that, then she nodded. "Then there should be a carrot to go with the stick."

Yonaga's eyebrow arched knowingly. "One of your friends? You, perhaps?"

Makoto jolted, then she blinked before she shook her head. "Much that I hate what Murata-hakase did to me and my friends, I do agree with him on one point, Yoiko-chan." As the carrier jolted on hearing that more personal form of address, the track star gave her an inviting smile. "I trust _**you**_ , Itō Yoiko, with my body and soul. As much as Keiko-sensei does Sonia-san. I won't give myself to anyone but you." As the carrier felt her cheeks heat from the track star's saying that, Makoto smirked. "Even more, I have an idea who can be Asami-san's 'date'. Kubo Maria-sempai." As Yonaga gazed at her, the Ōsaka native smirked. "She's half-Jewish; her mother's from Tel Aviv. Asami-san needs to understand what were the true crimes in that war, among us and among our 'allies' in Europe at that time. And if she learns the truth about the Civil War along the way..."

Yonaga hummed before nodding.

She would have to discuss this issue with Abraham Lincoln and his two shipgirl aides-de-camp when she got a chance...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Nekul'túrnyje démony** — Uncultured demons; **Avalónka** — Avalonian (adjective); **Nekul'túrnyje rabotorgóvtsy** — Uncultured slavers; **Nekul'túrnaja i ègoistíchnaja shljúkha** — Uncultured and selfish whore; **Gospozhá** — Honorific for a married woman; **Inoplanétnyje mónstry** — Alien monsters; **Pérvaja Kanádskaja Specializírovannaja Boevája Zvenó** — First Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit; **Natsístskije sverkhljúdi** — Nazi metahumans; **Zhemchúzhina Síla** — Power Jewel; **Morskíe mónstry** — Sea monsters; **Tikhookeánskij Flot** — Pacific Fleet; **Jidzíbaka** — Yizibajohei (adjective); **Uyoku-dantai** — Literally "right-wing groups", the catch-all name for the modern Japanese militarist nationalist groups who support the restoration of the traditional forms of government and social structures that were effectively wrecked in 1945.

Patronymics used here:

 **Khiromí Mútovna** — Hiromi, daughter of Muchi  
 **Lum Invád'rovna** — Lum, daughter of Invader  
 **Ran Makotóvna** — Ran, daughter of Makoto  
 **Sinóbu Tosjóbovna** — Shinobu, daughter of Toshoba  
 **Kaéru Mútovich** — Kaeru, son of Muchi  
 **Nagáivakai Tenitíovna** — Nagaiwakai, daughter of Ten'ichi  
 **Robérta Adónisovna** — Roberta, daughter of Adone  
 **Déannetta Daniílovna** — Deannette, daughter of Daniel

 **Minimu** and **Smolzona** were two of the sprite-like creatures summoned by Jane Richardson as depicted in _Belated Battleship_ ; the former appeared in "Plushies Were Only the Beginning" and the latter in "Smolbote is Smol". Both snippets can be found at SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity. A nod as always to the JMPer for his characters.

Shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Hatsuyuki** — Fukushima Hatsue  
 **THG Shinonome** — Fukushima Shiroko  
 **THG Shirakumo** — Fukushima Shinobu  
 **THG Aso** — Komura Asami  
 **THG Kisaragi** — Komura Katsumi  
 **THG Kagerō** — Yuhara Minami  
 **THG Oyashio** — Yuhara Chikako

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS Merrimack** (ex-CSS Virginia) — Mary ferch Catesby Jones  
 **USS Monitor** — Sophia Brita Ericsson  
 **USS Wisconsin** — Christiana Heidi Dodge


	23. The Slow Climb to Normalcy

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Sable Island (three hundred kilometres southeast of Halifax), Wednesday 24 May, an hour before midnight (Tōkyō time: Thursday 25 May, an hour before lunch)...**_

The Sable Island Princess — "Sable" to her sisters — smiled as she and several of her PT imps placed baskets of fresh apples on the sand close to the head stallion of the herd of local ponies, descendants of those brought to this island in the days when Britain and France duelled over the mainland to seize control of the beaver pelt trade and create an empire that spanned the Atlantic. Of course, the island princess — one of several like her assigned to interdict human trade across her area of operations emerging from places such as Halifax, Boston and Québec City to head to Europe — had nothing against the beautiful ponies that had lived on this island for generations, left mostly unmolested by human beings...

...and, thank the Fates, left alone by the alien creatures that dared believe they could walk all over Earth and do whatever they want regardless of the consequences and regardless of the harm they ultimately unleashed on all native beings.

Sable smirked as she recalled the days before Blood Week — where she arranged for the total destruction of the Canadian Atlantic Fleet — when she led raids all across the Maritime provinces, deliberately seeking out the pointed-eared copycat aliens who DARED violate the sanctity of the great End Treaty by bringing their pretty bioroid slaves to serve as auxiliary observers to Earth, using them and abusing them to their hearts' content. The looks of total horror on those arrogant beasts' faces which had been transmitted to her by her flyers when they were shot dead, helpless in the face of the power of Mother Earth even with their own advanced technology at their beck and call, had always made the teenage-shaped deep sea spirit laugh. Oh, yes, there was interference from the local sparkles as they strove to maintain their stupid secrecy statute, but that had been easily brushed aside by her forces, unleashing incredible bloodshed that had effectively de-powered the famous "W" Division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, allowing Sable and nearby fleet formations to make a full sweep of it.

Shaking her head as she considered how many sailors died because of the magicals' unwillingness to share information — and this in the country that led the way when it came to cooperation between magicals and normals! — Sable turned away from the ponies to allow them to eat; the baskets were large enough and full enough to give them all vital snacks. While she had long been despised by humans for what she did to defenders of Nova Scotia and her neighbouring provinces — much that she had yet to master tapping into digital communications, there were still enough shortwave, magical AM and normal AM signals transmitting for Sable to listen to — she didn't see herself as a monster, not like some of the other isolated island princesses across the planet. Though she hated the idea of fool humans moving convoys across the Atlantic without her permission to keep Britain fed — when they clearly had enough of their own supplies to keep them going, especially through that tunnel under the English Channel! — she had not been able to put a real dent into the defences, not after the corvettes...!

 _ **KK-KRACK!**_

Sable croaked as something with the equivalent power of a speeding locomotive slammed into her throat, nearly blowing her head off her shoulders. As the pain overwhelmed her while she collapsed onto the sand after all control over her body had been lost thanks to her spinal cord being severed, various imps screamed as they looked around for the source of that sniper bullet that had just fatally wounded their leader. Gasping as she tried to command her repair crews to get her back on her feet, the isolated island princess tensed as she felt something start to burn through her body, a VERY familiar mineral-like scent flooding her nostrils before the hypercharged mesonium core of that .50 BMG round exploded, vaporizing her!

Many imps howled in panic as her whole body and support structures instantly vanished...just as another bullet slammed into the sand close to a large gathering of dive bombers at one of the runways Sable had set out to continue to patrol her part of the ocean. As that bullet exploded to render those dark things ashes and shred the runway, a third bullet smashed into the other runway, taking out the gathering of fighters that had been collected to help protect the bombers from incoming attacks by passing shipgirl aircraft carriers, especially the one long nicknamed "Crazy Bonnie" who served as the flagship of the Atlantic Fleet herself. The few surviving imps all cried out as they scattered, separating themselves to prevent whoever was shooting them from killing them wholesale with those deadly rounds that had to come out of an anti-materiel rifle of sorts.

The hunter that had perched himself in the lamp room of the abandoned lighthouse at the western end of the island near Wallace Lake — Sable had based herself at the unofficial aerodrome overlooking the south beach — didn't relax as he tracked the movement of the surviving imps. Quite surprised that none of them had guessed that they had a human stalker on the island for well over a day while he waited for the chance to strike down the rabid animal that had the blood of THOUSANDS on her clawed hands, the native of Miramichi on the eastern shore of New Brunswick could only shake his head in clear disapproval. Much that it was ultimately necessary to put these things down once and for all, the ease by which he could destroy them with just a modified MacMillan TAC-50 C15 .50 BMG heavy sniper rifle firing specially-prepared mesonium shells took away the internal satisfaction he had often felt in the past when it came to dealing with enemies of the nation.

Relaxing, Martin Larsden let out a controlled breath as he waited for the surviving imps to gather close to each other once it sank on them that they had to determine what just happened. Most were "PT imps", demonic versions of small patrol craft used by the Americans, the Germans and the Commonwealth nations to deliver quick firepower in areas where larger ships couldn't realistically operate. All of them were effectively rabid dogs that needed to be put down as much as their leader just was; the living spirits of American PT boats, German schnellboote and Commonwealth MTBs had returned to duty as various breeds of dogs, much like blimps used by the United States Navy and the Royal Air Force had come back as cats. Quietly chuckling in amusement at how this war continued to evolve right into the simply absurd, the sniper of the First Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit and now assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police smiled as a considerable crowd of imps gathered close to the freshwater lake which had developed close to the old weather station...

 _ **KK-KRACK! KK-KRACK!**_

Imps squealed in agony as bullets from a smaller calibre weapon slammed into them, causing their munitions to detonate and turn them into dust, shredding many of their companions along the way. Noting that through the scope of his weapon, Larsden sighed as he clicked on the safety of his C15. There were only TWO other people who could shoot as accurately as the Hunter of the Mi'kmaq...and Larsden knew that his former commanding officer was currently at her field headquarters at Dundurn near Saskatoon. Thus, it begged a question: What had brought the Dark Ranger of the Savannah to Canada?

"Johannes."

As the imps exploded into fragments of wood, torn flesh and burnt fur, footsteps on the sandy dunes nearby heralded the arrival of the Wildebeest, dressed in his preferred blue-grey-and-dark brown field uniform with the fur trim and the protective head mask which prevented people from recognizing Johannes Heribald, a diamond investor who spearheaded the removal of "blood" stones dug up across Africa during the many post-colonial wars there in the last few decades before the Abyssals issue ended up isolating the continent from the outside. South Africa's weathering of the storm was pretty much because of this man, Larsden knew. Mercenary, once-racist bigot and cold-blooded killer the native of Bloemfontein had been over the decades, he was also a South African patriot who had no use whatsoever of more "civilized" influences from Europe.

If there was a modern heir of Allan Quartermain, Johannes Heribald was him.

"Martin," the Wildebeest said as he drew out his Vektor SP1 pistol, then calmly fired at two imps that were trying to get out to sea and get away from this dark human whose reputation was known to Abyssals across two oceans. Blowing up their own magazines with well-placed shots in their bodies, the South African could only smile as he watched his "rival" from Canada step out of the lamp room of the old lighthouse, then calmly leap down onto the sandy ground below. _And they call this man the "weak" member of the War Hawks?!_ the Dark Ranger mused as Larsden came over, his preferred M1D Garand sniper rifle in hand. "Lovely evening to hunt, isn't it?" he asked as three imps quickly surged towards the Hunter of the Mi'kmaq.

Larsden's own Smith & Wesson Model 5906 cleared leather as he shot all three down with well-placed strikes to their heads, not breaking any stride as he calmly approached the other veteran of the metahuman side of World War Two and its rather gory aftermath. "It's necessary," the Miramichi native stated as he allowed his modified Garand to rest in his left hand while he holstered his pistol, then he drew up his rifle and aimed off in the near distance, sending out one shot.

The scream of yet another imp being turned into fragments filled the evening. "This was the one who slaughtered many of your students from 'W' Division," Heribald noted as he slipped his R1 assault rifle — a local-built version of the famous FN FAL that had seen service in Canada as the C1A1 until the late 1980s and still served the South African Army as a designated marksman's weapon — off his shoulder to deal with yet another imp trying to flee to sea and alert allies of the recently-slain installation princess that humans had retaken this island. Much to Heribald's personal amazement, the local herd of beautiful ponies hadn't reacted to the gunfire as they calmly ate the apples Sable brought here. Shaking his head, he then snap-drew one of his throwing knives, whipping that around and flinging it, impaling an imp that tried to get close enough to bite him.

"They should have called us in sooner," Larsden noted, shouldering his M1D and shooting two imps that actually got out on the water itself, heading in a southerly direction, no doubt in the general heading of Bermuda. "What of you?"

"As soon as the Republic was effectively cut off from the rest of the world, the Minister for Magic requested I be placed on permanent retainer to lend my expertise," Heribald answered as the two men made their way towards the site of the airfield. "The President was more than pleased to agree with such. Now that Dumbledore and his allies are doing their best to keep magical isolationists from interfering with the proper defence of the country, I can get some serious work done."

"And be paid for it, of course."

"Naturally."

Larsden didn't react to that as he drew out his pistol, then shot down another imp. Given the turbulent times the other hunter had faced as he grew into his powers during the years before the Second World War, it didn't surprise the New Brunswicker that the Orange Free Stater had become so mercenary in his thought processes and remained such to this very day. Seen as an agent that couldn't be realistically stopped by the best aurors the local Ministry of Magic could then try to bring to bear on Heribald, it was no wonder that Prime Minister J.B.M. Hertzog had done his best to keep the Dark Ranger as far clear of the magicals as possible by paying the man what he was worth whenever he did missions for the government. Given how badly South Africa suffered under that damned loyalty stone system — something that had NEVER been deployed across Canada and would probably have never worked given the levels of mesonium in the background environment — it was simply the smart thing to do until forces under Elizabeth Gibbon got to London in 1942 and wiped out the whole network that had ensured the magicals throughout most of the "empire where the sun never set" would be forced to adhere to European wand practices.

"How long have you been here anyway?" Heribald asked.

"Two days. Why?"

A wry smile crossed the Free Stater's face. "You didn't get the news then."

Larsden gazed at him. "What news?"

"Mary Josephine. And Valerie. They're all alive, Martin."

That made the Hunter's head snap over, his grey eyes wide with disbelief before he relaxed himself. Larsden had supported the weeping Heribald when the memorial service to the Liberty Legion had been held in Washington a month after the Battle of Toronto. It was that public act of humanity that had won worldwide sympathy for the Dark Ranger at the loss of the Angel of the Heart of Dixie, the cute Alabamian farmer that had won the heart of the deadly killer from South Africa.

He would NEVER lie about something like this...!

"Hey, Mister!"

Both hunters perked on hearing that low Dixie drawl, then they slowly turned...

...before they peered intently at the chestnut-haired woman in the dark red-and-white form-fitting bodysuit of Ariel, her gauntlet-covered hands now glowing. Before either man could ask what the native of Gadsden wanted to do, the woman born Mary Josephine Brown then spun around, sending out a force blast to rip apart the last major group of imps that had survived the two hunter's excellent marksmanship. "Filthy little critters," Ariel dryly noted as she slowly came over, a welcome smile on her face. "You up for hire, Mister Heribald?" she then coyly asked as she winked at him. "Seems I got me a bit of a rat problem over at the old farm. Big, fat white rats that love to run around in silk sheets and burn crosses all the time."

"The _**Ku Klux Klan**_ , Mary?" Heribald wondered with a scowl. Having long outgrown the idiot attitudes that had haunted his youth, the Dark Ranger had no care at all for the American white supremacists who seemed to do nothing these days but decry the fact that many of America's shipgirls — including several battleships — had come back resembling natives of Africa.

Brown nodded, rolling her eyes. "Soon as the news got out that I was back, a crowd of them all gathered at the front gate of my farm, fussing and carrying on because I was still friends with Paul O'Kane. I didn't want to use my powers on them so soon after getting back from helping Bill get rid of that damned bomb those Ratzis tried to use over Toronto." As Larsden hissed on hearing that, the Angel of the Heart of Dixie shrugged. "Once they tried to set it off, we had no choice..."

Larsden sighed. His own empathy — as he was so blessed by the shaman who most likely was the Mi'kmaq creator "god" Glooscap; he was actually one of the Great Beasts who had allied with the Undying Lord in dealing with the Old Ones many millennia ago — had been quick to detect the truth in Brown's words. "Well, I'm sure a visit to the White House where there would be some reporters close by would spread the message quite quickly that sort of thing is certainly not proper, Mary-Jo."

"You'd want to look on Valerie first," Heribald noted, a knowing smile on his face.

"She's at your cabin now," Brown helpfully added.

The War Hawks' sniper paused before he took a deep breath. "Well, at least that thing did something decent in its existence," he said as he calmly gazed on the burning area of sand where Sable had stood before he shot her down. The local ponies were still nibbling on the apples the isolated island princess had brought them. "A brief visit, I suppose."

"More hunting?" the Dark Ranger then wondered.

Larsden sighed. "It doesn't seem to want to stop, Johannes..."

* * *

 _ **In Rajdhani on the planet Tahupraemiku (Tofunokoibito), 28th Day of the Eighth Month in the Holy Year 1438, breakfast (T**_ _ **ōkyō time: Thursday 25 May, two hours after lunch)...**_

"What in the name of the Fates were you people THINKING, General?!"

Shuddering as the elderly golden-skinned man standing now in the middle of the great meeting hall of the Galactic Federation of Planet-states, Seq Yethis could only scowl at that accusation as he ignored the indignant shouts from dozens of delegates representing all the lesser powers who had banded together with Uru to resist the pressures of the so-called "great races" two centuries ago — much less the green-skinned upstarts from Ipraedos — in the wake of that unmitigated disaster called the "Union Revolution" by historians these days. "Surely, the Prime Minister must understand the need to keep Earth free of the grasp of They Who Must Never Be Named!" the middle-aged raven-haired Oni senior general and scion of one of the old Imperial Houses of the third world of Oniboshi called back, inwardly smirking as people quickly shut up on hearing THAT particular phrase. "That the Terrans completely misinterpreted our intentions from the start is understandable given the current situation with these 'abyssal' beings. But we cannot allow them to maintain whatever 'alliance' they possess with the metahuman maniacs of That Planet! The very safety of all the peoples living close to Earth is under dire threat...!"

"You mean they present a dire threat to the _**Imperial Round's**_ plans, General?" Prime Minister Hosha of Kutzei from the planet Zeiwan calmly wondered as he sent a knowing look to the unofficial leader of the "old boy's club" who wanted to restore the feudal empire which dominated Uru for seven centuries until the Union Revolution saw them chased into the shadows.

Yethis tried not to snap at the investment banker who won his current post by sheer hard work and financial acumen. Even if they had control over certain levers of government even to this day, the Round was now just ONE faction in a cauldron of Urusian politics that was just being BARELY held back from unleashing another revolution by the military junta in which Seq Rei's material uncle currently served as chief of staff to the current grand general of the Union, Hozan Lana. What was worse, observers from other planets — informed by class traitors and lessers on Uru supported by the thrice-accursed Imperial Central Intelligence Agency of the Dominion of Noukiios, Yethis knew — understood what was brewing in the halls of power in Onishuto and were no doubt making bets as to what would happen when that cauldron finally DID boil over. Given how much face the Urusians as a whole lost when Earth effectively expelled Redet Lum and her friends from the planet a week before...!

"Don't lie anymore, Yethis!" the vice-commandant of the central defence council of the Union of Fukunokami, Shigaten Benten's adopted father Ebisu, said as he glared at the man with the Lincoln-like beard sans moustache seated nearby.

"That's the problem with his kind, Commandant Ebisu!" the Prince of the Underworld, the current chief of state of Kōmoros, said with a sneer. "They make lying an _**art form**_ on Uru. What they can't stand about the Crazy Ones is that they caught them at that lie in their so-called 'invasion' before the Revolution, then punished them for it." The helmeted man about Lum's age then raised a finger in emphasis. "A little too harshly, I will always agree...but they were caught at it."

"And now the Terrans have caught them at it," Kurama of Karasutengu added from nearby as she sent an amused look at the current chief of the Urusian delegation. "Even more, it was _**Moroboshi Ataru**_ himself who caught them. With the assistance of Lord Nengmek'i and Lady K'ekhech, of course...but once he realized how much his 'wife' LIED to him like that, he acted immediately to not only remove her from his life, but remove the threat her 'most faithful' presented to his people. How befitting in the end." Here, she sneered at the shuddering delegates from the Union of Phentax Two, all of whom currently represented the "one true church"...which now only had control of the homeworld and not its many colony planets within the tri-star Phentax system. "'Treat someone as a pariah, he becomes a pariah'," she then quoted the Noukiite maxim Moroboshi Ataru himself spoke of at the Tarōzakura Hill the previous day; the NHK broadcast of that battle had been picked up by the observation team over Jupiter and relayed to the headquarters of the Federation in Rajdhani right away for the delegates to see as they continued to debate over what was happening on the third world of Sol. "How befitting indeed."

"How DARE you cast doubt on the Goddess' intentions, you hybrid bitch?!" the chief of the Niphentaxian delegation shrilled in a voice that was quite akin to that of the late Aisuru Satoshi. That was understandable, of course. Fangi t'ndai-Marthon had always been seen as Ōgi ot'ndai-Zkuhsbagh's top-ranked yes-man when it came to dealing with the non-believers on other planets, even if the former was two decades older than the latter when the most recent "great awakening" that ushered in the Church of Lum eight years before. "Tell me, Your Highness, aren't you still engaged to MARRY the Great Evil?" he then leered out, earning him heckles from his own countrymen and a good proportion of the other delegates.

"Strange you call Ataru the 'great evil' when the learned experts in Ryekkyuk all declared him a _**Servant of Angels**_ , Master Fangi," Kurama retorted. "Or are you going to refuse Lady K'ekhech's aid the NEXT time someone from Yiziba goes on a 'walk' down the main thoroughfare of Lumukyō?" She ignored the screams from many other delegates on her speaking the name of the third planet of Kaeyu instead of using normal conventions when talking about that planet; unlike other races represented here, Karasutengu — closest civilized world to Yiziba — had never been subject to anything catastrophic by the metahumans of the Seeker's Forge, not on the scale which had been burned into Urusian memory over two centuries before. "Your people unknowingly violated the End Treaty when you brought your enslaved bioroids to that planet to serve as auxiliary observers."

As the Niphentaxians all screamed denials, Kurama waved to the main view screen at the head of the room, where a message from a certain rogue Vosian bounty hunter had been played hours before. "As Hunter Commander Nassur just reported, that aroused the very life force of the planet to create monsters to remove your observers from the planet! The original models weren't efficient enough, so something new and better WAS created! Which ultimately violated your own oaths to yourselves to NEVER do anything to harm Terran society and culture! You all stood against the actions of other parties when they moved to cull the new generation of Terran metahumans who rose in the wake of their Second World War, even going so far as to help the Men In Black hunt them down and eliminate those assassins before Chief Zed and his friends were killed...!"

" _ **WHAT?! TRAITORS! HOW DARE YOU STAB US IN THE BACK ABOUT THAT?!**_ " Yethis howled as he glared at Fangi.

"Oh?! Look at how you treat the Goddess herself, _Lord_ Yethis!" one of Fangi's countrymen sneered back, the contempt she felt for the general's noble title coating the floor of the meeting hall and making many of the others laugh at such a break between the leaders of Uru and Phentax Two. "How do they call her again in your info-nets?! The 'marble woman'?! Not allowed to say ANYTHING, even voice her opinions at our former president's actions against the Holy Friend Nassur's countrymen — as horrible as it had to be given the Mikado's madness! — when it was clear as rain to our people watching over her that she chafed at every chance to be free of your decrepit 'club's' influence!" As Yethis and his allies all snarled at that public insult to their organization, Taran odai-Reslei — she had been the governor of Phentax Twenty-three, outermost world of the system, until she had been deposed and forced to flee to the Homeworld during the Liberation of the Avalonians months before — shook her head. "It chafed her so much that when she was accidentally presented the chance to marry Moroboshi Ataru at the Tag Race a year ago, she TOOK it! What does it say about YOUR government, General, that YOU forced the living heiress to your old empire's throne to FLEE to another planet — even under the false pretense of marriage — to escape her 'loyal subjects' on her homeworld, I wonder!" She shook her head as many people applauded her words...

* * *

 _ **In the observation gallery overlooking the main floor...**_

"She's actually one of us, Lum."

Hearing that from her new lover and would-be wife, Redet Lum blinked. "A spy?"

"Easily masked with just a small device inserted in her body to project a perfect masking wave against whatever technology they were allowed to keep after Darling and his friends cleared out that planet," Skelad Lara said as she sipped her own spice tea while watching the "debate" on the main floor below. Given that her own personal yacht had been modified months before by Avalonian sisters to make it the near-equal of any of the old Fourth Republic Sagussan starships which had been left adrift in orbit over the second world of the Den'sha system near Spotak thirteen millennia ago in the wake of the Clone Rights War — said fleet having been found with the help of Kasuga Ayumu and Suzumiya Haruhi shortly after the Liberation, then turned over to the control of the just-freed bioroid heiresses of the Fourth Republic for their own use — it had been easy for the first heiress to one of Uru's largest companies to get her would-be bond-mate here to watch the unveiling of the latest plot against the Terrans unleashed at the order of the man who could have been Lum's uncle-in-law...had she got another "option" in the Tag Race. "She's been feeding information to President Miree on Phentax Fourteen concerning those radicals aligned with Ōgi's way of thinking who need to be eliminated and allow the 'one true faith' to lose their grip on power."

Lum slowly nodded. Her presence here had been efficiently masked by the current leader of the Federation Council and the crown princess regent of Tahupraemiku, Lupica of Rajdhani; right now, the raven-haired woman her age was standing at the lectern at the head of the main hall, now sipping some crystal tea with a strong headache removal solution to give her greater strength in dealing with the continued moves by elements of the Urusian government and the "legitimate" Niphentaxian government to press for their "traditional" rights concerning Earth. Rights that had been effectively denied them thanks in part to Lum's would-be "husband", who had, over the period of a year, been forced to learn the truth about the many galactic powers who wanted a free hand concerning his homeworld. Guided by the knowledge he inherited from Moroboshi Negako and suggestions by friends he made on Okusei and elsewhere — including Lum's own Avalonian twin sister, Redet Hensō, who had been studying at the famous university on Noukiios' oldest colony world to get a degree in intergalactic diplomacy — he acted decisively and deftly, even when he got homesick and returned to Earth, living in the Italian port city of Taranto...

Where he got himself his future wife.

A flare of familiar and welcome jealousy immediately surged up through Lum's body as the image of the third of the Littorio-class battleships flashed through her mind. A somewhat plain girl in physical looks and forced to wear reading glasses even when she was out at sea strapped to her rigging, the woman also known as Roberta Ansaldo — who got that name thanks to Moroboshi Ataru himself three years ago! — was perfect wife material for the man. Reported to be one of the best cooks among the shipgirls of Earth, she probably had won Ataru's heart thanks to her introducing her to the many joys of the local cuisine, something that was guaranteed to win him over after what he probably experienced on Okusei; Noukiites and Urusians both had a shared love of spicy food, which was even hotter than what Koreans on Earth enjoyed. With the guarantee that his alien "wife" would soon be forever out of his hair thanks to the American-born current incarnation of the Academician...

Lum shuddered as that spike of outrage at being denied the man she loved was instantly doused by a wave of dark depression, surging up thanks to a mesonium memory crystal which had been placed in Ataru's old bedroom in Tomobiki — no doubt by Negako — for the warlord's daughter to find when she returned to Earth two weeks after she had been forcibly separated from her "husband" thanks to the oldest of Noukiios' heavenly dragons. After discovering all his personal belongings gone — with all electronic tracers Lum had secretly sewn into them to make sure she could keep him safe removed and left behind — she had nearly brought her would-be in-laws' home down with a burst of lightning...until she had seen the diary on his work desk.

It had been opened to a page with a simple note on it:

 _ **By the way, did you know this diary was a FAKE all along, Redet-san?  
**_ _ **I know the lie about our "marriage" now.  
**_ _ **Pity you won't get what you wanted.  
**_ _ **Didn't what Nengmek'i-ojiichan did to you in Onishuto tell you anything?  
**_ _ **By the way, care to know what happened to your "most faithful" and your "army"?  
**_ _ **You won't have them around to hide behind anymore.  
**_ _ **Grow up and never darken my door again!  
**_ _ **Ataru  
**_ _ **NEVER your "darling"**_

Reading that made Lum lose control...

...but just before her bio-electricity would have lashed out to burn the house down, a small crystal of mesonium had dropped down the page from where it had been invisibly masked to land in the palm of Lum's hand.

And then came the _**memories**_...

Dear Maidens above, the MEMORIES...!

Lum had heard the rumours about the Battle of Morningstar Plain. How the famous Dragonspeaker and her then-travelling companion had fought an ARMY of over sixty thousand bandits on the Plains of Morningstar near the capital city of Okusei, slaughtering them wholesale in the space of about four hours Earth-time. NEVER did the warlord's daughter even BEGIN to suspect her own "husband" had been the "friend" in that battle, accounting for over a THOUSAND of those killed that day.

That dark afternoon in Tomobiki, Lum got an up-close and personal view of that bloody day over eleven months before.

Of how Ataru tried to use his ki mallet to fight the bandits off.

How they just kept coming...

And coming...

And COMING...!

How he allowed his long mental "house guest" to take over his body to fight off the bandits, which didn't help them; because Okusei was NOT Earth, Negako could only use a small amount of her abilities against the swarms of bandits.

Just as Ataru was about to be overwhelmed...

 _ **Allow me to give you some assistance...**_

Lum felt the cold fire that had burned away all that had touched Ataru over a period of ten years, ripping away what little remained of his innocence in a microsecond as the power of a long-dead society flooded his veins.

 _ **...and know now the scale of how you were USED by lesser beings at the site of my laboratory.**_

The actual physical transformation into the living avatar of the Master of Entropy — who had been, in his mortal life, a scientist who witnessed the end of his own civilization a hundred millennia ago, then moved to re-seed his planet with new life descent of the world of the Keystone Power Jewel — hadn't hurt Ataru even if he then came to wield the power of a GOD...!

 _ **Be free of the dark grasp of lesser beings, my avatar...**_

But the tearing away of all the curses from gods and demons alike, the many attempts at caging a young man who simply wanted to live his life and who had once been loved by a planet of reborn maidens who had become galactic legend...

 _ **...go forth to save those who once welcomed you into their bosom...**_

The return rush of memories from Ataru's innocent trip to Sagussa in years past...

Meeting the reborn modern incarnation of Uru's greatest heroine, Aruka Noa...

Being loved by a hundred thousand once-living logic machines reborn from freshly-dead women from two dozen worlds, who knew NOTHING of emotions and were no different than their Avalonian "cousins" trapped in the Phentax system...

 _ **...fulfill the promise to the Angel of Terra to give her life...**_

Memories of watching his paternal cousin Hana Hirosuke give up his life as he forced the essence of Earth's first artificial intelligence into the mind of a child who had been tricked into helping his "Onē-chan" become a pretty girl...

 _ **...free all those true of the blood of Sagussa...**_

And then, after Morningstar Plain...

 _ **...and then free your world of the taint of those who violated the End Treaty.**_

The Liberation of the Avalonians...

 _ **Go forth, my avatar.**_

Freeing Skelad Lara and her friends and allies — once all Imperial radicals to the very core of their beings, yet transformed by Fate into moderates who owed Lum's "husband" a life debt NONE could ever hope to repay, even if they became Ataru's own "harem" — from a stupid decision made by the elder daughter of one of Uru's richest merchants...and in doing so, forging a deadly dagger now pointed at the heart of the Imperial Round, whose dreams of seeing Earth enslaved had never died...

 _ **Be like Atar was in Toghmoghbiki in years past...**_

Helping the living spirit of one of Yiziba's greatest metahumans live again, gaining another sister along the way...

 _ **Cleanse your world of Entropy's dark stains...**_

Travelling to Taranto when homesickness made him come home, where he went forth and became a normal teenage boy...

 _ **Give love and hope to those who won your admiration...**_

Meeting the famous "torpedo twins" — whom Ataru knew of as Kumamoto Kiko and Kumamoto Otsune — after they had come to the port at the end of the Italian peninsula, enjoying his first ever true date with pretty girls...

 _ **Erase Entropy's blinding masks over the Sea Angels of Terra...**_

Then dating two cruisers from the United States just in from escorting a convoy, being intimate with both the spiritual daughter of San Francisco's "emperor" from years past and the spiritual namesake to Austria's greatest warrior...

 _ **Give them courage to tame the wild creatures caught in Entropy's grasp...**_

Then dating the oldest of Imperial Russia's dreadnought battleships, a boisterous and bombastic woman who loved her nation more than the governments that had ruled it over the last century, who also was so lonely in heart...

 _ **Guide them in their new destiny in defending all of Terra and Sagussa alike...**_

Then dating the last commissioned of America's battleships, on whose deck the final surrender of World War Two was held...

Then came the second of the first class of armoured carriers to serve Japan, the most experienced shipgirl of her type...

She was followed by the "pride" of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, struck down in her first true battle due to old age...

And then came the modern namesake of France's most famous privateer...

 _ **Chose your true marei'cha, free of the lies of others...**_

And then came the battle with the Messina Princess.

Where the Cyborg that burned a swath over two planets went wild on a being that could destroy the most powerful shipgirl.

Saving two beautiful reborn fast battleships, one of those being the namesake of the Eternal City itself.

 _ **...and forever live your life as YOU chose, my avatar...**_

Roberta Ansaldo.

Roma. Third of the Littorio-class fast battleships.

One of the first victims of a precursor design to modern anti-ship missiles.

Lum screamed in helpless agony after she experienced the echo of the mad surge of desire and lust that totally swamped Ataru's heart that moment when Roma lunged into his arms, thanking him for saving her and her sister Imperio from the mad princess that he just tore apart with his armoured hands. Nearly driving the nigh-invincible Cyborg to his knees even if he kept control over himself to allow the crying battleship — who had nearly been deluged by a dozen V-1 buzz bombs that made her experience a hideous flashback of the day she sank in 1943, her admiral, captain and so many others slain by the Luftwaffe — to vent out her fears as she held her saviour close for over an hour before a relief force led by Littorio and Vittorio Veneto came. Thus allowing the ancient magics that saw her reborn to forge a life-debt bond that would bind her to him forever.

 _ **...my son.**_

It was at the Battle of Messina that Lum had forever lost her "darling".

It was at that battle that the forces that had played with the souls of so many in Tomobiki for years gained a horrible enemy.

One that would gladly lay waste to all in that town to free Earth of whatever threat could arise from that quarter.

And yet...

" _She was my only real true friend in that town, Tesoro_ ," Ataru told his fiancée just before he went back to his old family home to lay the ugly trap that would shatter the dreams and fantasies of so many once and for all time. " _No matter what she did to me — no doubt out of sheer desperation in most cases because of how she was treated by her countrymen and her 'most faithful' — she deserves the chance to live her own life as much as the Master gave me the ability to live my own life._ "

" _As long as she never comes back here to haunt you anew, Amore_ ," Roma coldly noted as she held him close. " _She is as much a monster as those things who loved to play with your soul and the soul of all the others in that rotted town._ "

Ataru said nothing in response to his lover's cold observation...

...but Lum knew from the very instant that memory crystal had been absorbed by her body in a way that NO ONE in Tomobiki or on Uru could hope to save her from, that deep down, Ataru had actually seen his "wife" in that light far too many times.

To know how much deep down her "darling" actually HATED her...

It had nearly driven the warlord's daughter to suicide many times in the two weeks she had remained on Earth, barely saved by her friends and would-be family until her father had come to finally take her back home...

Said friends that Ataru now saw as potential threats to his own people...

Said would-be family he thoroughly detested with every fibre of his being...

None of who would ever approve of his evolving as he had done over a year's time.

None of whom would even try to understand what had befallen him.

Not either of his parents...

Not his former girlfriend...

Not his old classmates...

Not even the spiritual clerics who had tried to protect him...

The Battle of Messina...

The Liberation of the Avalonians...

The Battle of Morningstar Plain...

All those fights and so much more had so wrecked any hope of Lum ever trying to marry Ataru that it had been no wonder that she had become depressed to the point of contemplating suicide until she was taken home and had soon met Skelad Lara.

It would have been far more merciful for Ataru to simply crush Lum's horns in the traditional way divorce was done...

The warlord's daughter perked as Lara's hand squeezed her shoulder, then she gazed on the coquettish Oni seated beside her. A wan smile crossed Lum's face as she moved to lean her head on Lara's shoulder while they watched the zoo below...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, near the Rāmen Nekohanten, that moment...**_

"Shinobu-chan..."

"So sorry...so sorry...I should have been there for you, Ataru-kun...!"

Shaking her head as her brother's old girlfriend continued to wail after getting the chance to experience the storm of dark memories that had been dumped in the former clone's head the instant Moroboshi Ataru had been shot back in time by Nengmek'i, Karasawa Mitsuki could only breathe out as she moved to gently thread Miyake Shinobu's hair with her fingers. Seated nearby were Shinobu's parents Toshoba and Kimiki, both of whom were also shuddering; they had also got a taste of those memories thanks to two of Mitsuki's clone-replica sisters, Misaki Yukari and Mishima Akira. "My God," Toshoba hissed out. "To believe that Ataru went through all THAT! It's a wonder he didn't go permanently mad as a result!"

The three former clone replicas exchanged looks before they nodded. "Onii-chan's mind pretty much split in half at the moment the Master gifted him with the power of the Cyborg, Oji-chan," Akira said as her dark blue eyes teared. "He welcomes that split now. After all, it gives him a safe vent to allow all the anger and hate that built up inside him because of all the things he had to endure to get vented out without hurting people like Roberta-onēchan and the others he cares for."

"Especially Nē-nē," Yukari added.

The Miyake family all gazed at the pink-haired childish woman with the sea green eyes. "Why doesn't he hate that thing?" Kimiki then asked; they all knew that using the term "big sister" without a name implied Moroboshi Negako. "Given what she was prepared to do if Lord Nengmek'i didn't come along and offer the Avalonian solution to her, Ataru should resent her with every fibre of his being, not accept her as his current guardian and an elder sister figure atop that! Why...?"

"Onii-san is more angry at the priests and other idiots who failed to properly monitor Oji-san when it came time for him to pass on Onē-san's essence to the next host, Oba-san," Mitsuki stated as she held Shinobu close, allowing the latter to moan as she held the tomboyish and bespectacled bioroid tightly, as if she would do to Ataru himself. "After all, there were other people who could have served as Onē-san's host who were full adults and quite prepared to do such. Why it didn't happen..."

"Probably the kami that loved to fuck around with all our lives."

People turned as Kubo Ayano walked into the bedroom that she shared with Mitsuki, a tea service in hand. Kneeling, she moved to prepare cups for everyone. "Most likely," Sakurambō Sakura said as she accepted the tea prepared by the stylish-looking woman with the silky strawberry blonde hair and the gunmetal grey eyes. Taking a sip, she smiled. "Oh, my! Arigatō."

"How's your magic, Sensei?" Ayano asked as she moved to serve Shinobu's mother.

"A lot easier to control," the shrine maiden and part-time nurse at Tomobiki High School reported. "It seems that soulsword to my head did more to help me than hurt me. Which is surprising given your brother's attitudes now."

Ayano shrugged. "Well, you have to admit, the first time we met did get pretty confusing when it came to 'who cursed whom' first." As the others in the room nodded on recognizing her use of the word "we" to imply Ataru as one single being before the clone-gun incident, she added, "The part of Onii that didn't care for all the shit that got dumped on his head because he SUPPOSEDLY was born on Friday the 13th when it was a Butsumetsu day — which is a huge lie, by the way, one made by the slut we were born from...!" She ignored the winces from Shinobu's parents on her calling Moroboshi Kinshō that. "Well, he hated everything you 'did' to him that day. The Cyborg just didn't care. You interfered in his task to get the souls of the Three into Velial's hands to settle the debt Onii owed him from some months ago. He got you out of the way. If you benefited from it, he wouldn't care either which way." She handed a cup of tea to Toshoba before she gave Sakura a warning look. "In other words, you try a dumb stunt like that again, he'll probably do what he did to Otako-onē's template during the Liberation."

"What happened?" Toshoba wondered.

"Ataru ripped her head and spine right out of her body."

That was Shinobu, who was now wiping her eyes clean even if her tears still flowed down her cheek while she tried to absorb the horrors that Ataru had endured over the last year. "She was the governor of Phentax Twelve, seen as the administrator-in-chief over everything that happened on the bioroid factory," Mitsuki added. "She called Onii-san every name in the book when he came with the task force to liberate everyone. The insults really got vile when he transformed into the Cyborg and started ripping people apart. When she vowed to use some sort of trigger system to kill all the slaves alive today — which didn't exist — Onē-san cut in from the main control tower stating that the loyalty lock was gone and that the recall mechanisms were being used to pull the slaves back to the factory." She then giggled. "The stupid bitch punched him in the jaw. Broke her hand, which made him 'play' with her for a bit before her other-self got beamed in from the cave she was stashed in."

"What happened?" Sakura wondered.

"Thumbs down, Sakura-san," Akira answered with a sad smile, which made the others in the room wince. "Instant Onii-chan saw that, off came her head!" She made a horizontal chopping motion with her hand.

"No, Akira! Nii-nii pulled her head out, remember?!" Yukari protested.

The four clone-replicas all darkly laughed, which made the others in the room shudder at the fact that they were mocking the death of a sentient being — a very beautiful woman if the images of the current president of the Provisional Republic of New Avalon, Otako ot'ndai-Meinyak, hinted at anything — as if she had been an annoying cockroach that had just been crushed. "Don't you care about all the people he killed?" Shinobu then asked. "Yes, it was necessary, but to lament _**that**_...!"

"After what we went through, Shinobu-chan, you can't ask any of us to care for most Niphentaxians these days," Mitsuki then warned. "Hai, you can't disparage a whole _**race**_ for the actions of a few monsters, but given that no one — even on the colony planets where relations between the Niphentaxians and the Avalonians were much more civil and equal — tried to put a stop to what Ojii-chan warned would happen to everyone once the Avalonians were enslaved, we have no pity for them at all."

"We're not even sure if this new provisional government that's being organized by Miree ot'ndai-Bohgar on Phentax Fourteen is going to succeed or not," Ayano added. "Those people were browbeaten by their 'wise elders' for so long, it'll take a miracle — or a few Mothers of All Fight Scenes — to finally wake them up and rediscover what they've had inside them all along."

"What do you mean by that, Ayano-chan?" Shinobu asked.

"Look at all the hybrids we know of, Shinobu," Ayano noted as she moved to hand her other-self's old girlfriend a cup of tea. "Arisugawa Yui, for example. She's half-Niphentaxian. If the Niphentaxians actually had a genetic defect which denied them the right to self-create, she should have had issues. She didn't. She came up with the escape plan to get everyone from M.C. High out of that school and over here to Nerima, doing it in such a way that she escaped detection both by other observers and the local authorities. Knowing how warped those idiots could be at times — especially these days! — if she was a true pure Niphentaxian, the country would have found out about them! Thanks pretty much to Ōgi influencing things like he did."

"They were being made to forego their old lessons concerning silent observation of our society, you mean," Sakura noted.

"Especially in the last year. Didn't you people notice how many in town were wearing Tomobiki High seifuku, even ADULTS?!"

Sakura and the Miyake family seemed to look in on themselves as they scanned their memories about what the stylish clone-replica had just told them. After a moment, the shrine miko shook her head. "Another thing we can blame on the yōma."

"They knew the Niphentaxians were there," Shinobu concluded. "But if this End Treaty was being violated because all your sisters were enslaved at the time, Ayano-chan, why didn't they move to hurt the Niphentaxians?"

"Because of the whole link between Onii-san and Sagussa," Mitsuki said. "Once the link was proven, the yōma wanted to make sure that Onii-san never went back to that planet unless he was effectively enslaved to Lum."

"Or her spiritual 'patron'," Sakura finished. "No wonder the Three and their allies went insane when they felt his new power."

"They should have learned the lesson Hogwarts teaches people," Akira then noted. "'Never tickle a sleeping dragon'."

Rueful laughter filled the room...

* * *

 _ **The Toranoseishin Finances Tower, that moment...**_

"So Shinobu-chan finally saw it?"

"She did, Nē-ya."

Hearing that from the last of her twelve "younger" adopted sisters, Moroboshi Hiromi shook her head. "She wasn't hurt by what she saw Onii-san go through, was she?" she then asked as she gazed in hope at Tsuchidō Otome.

"She is a lot stronger in her heart than we often saw her as, Nē-ya," the raven-haired, grey-eyed woman whose namesake was seen as the "mystery" sister in _Colourful Kiss_ affirmed as she gave the current head of her clan a light smile. "I somehow think that Mitsuki's bonding programming might be activating now concerning Shinobu. I hope they do become a couple. After all the garbage she's been put through, not just by us but by everything else in town, Shinobu deserves it."

"Good! At least that monster won't be close to young Shūtarō anymore!"

Gasps filled the room as Otome gazed intently at Mizunokōji Saeko, who was glaring — as much as she could given her facial palsy — at their hosts. This private meeting of the two richest clans in Japan and their chief financial backers was being held in the main reception room of the tower, floors down from Yumoa Reigi's office and Hiromi's private quarters. Before people could shout at the matriarch of the Mizunokōji of Musashino for making such a rude comment about someone Hiromi and her sisters clearly cared for — to say anything of how much Mendō Shūtarō still cared for his former girlfriend — Otome sighed as she drew out a Lawgiver from the holster strapped to her side, levelled it at Saeko's head, then fired.

Screams filled the room as Saeko was smashed right in the forehead by that bolt of energy — at Level Eight, Hiromi was relieved to note — which sent the now-powerless matriarch of the Mizunokōji Clan flipping head-over-feet to crash into a nearby wall before collapsing in a moaning heap of quivering humanity on the floor near the main doors. "My thanks, Otome," Hiromi said as she shook her head. "Apologies, Oji-san, but any comments concerning Shinobu-chan..."

Mizunokōji Yūjiro snorted. In recent days, the patriarch of the second-most wealthy family in Japan seemed to have transformed from the wimpish being that he often was whenever he appeared in public to something a lot more befitting as one of Japan's senior captains of industry. It was a delightful sign for his own counterpart among his family's oldest rivals, Mendō Hajime. Much that he did acknowledge that the Mizunokōji was as much a matriarchal family as the Moroboshi were, he rather would prefer to deal with a calm-headed Yūjiro than his wife, a misandrist long denounced by foreign partners that both clans often did business with as being just one step away from becoming a full-blooded "feminazi" as someone like Rush Limbaugh might address her as. "Do not apologize, Hiromi-chan," Yūjiro stated as several of the Kurotenshi who served as his family's bodyguards immediately moved to help Saeko recover. "She rather didn't care for Shinobu-chan's own gifts as they seemed to rival her own. Much that my wife does have her good points, her pride tends to get too much in the way of her common sense. Something many of us are guilty of, but in this day and age, it could be the death of us if we're not careful."

"A wise point, Oji-san," Yumoa Reigi then stated with an amused smile. He was the one who was chairing this meeting on his clan matriarch's behalf. "We will always respect family traditions, but given how much your wife refused to do something concerning your daughter's powers when the sheer level of her lack of preparedness concerning living in modern society became apparent, it's no wonder that people have little trust in your family anymore. After all, if it wasn't Ataru-kun that woke up Asuka-chan's androphobia, it could have been one of the other 'ladies' men' who live in this town. As you'll all know, they effectively operated under the radar given how much good 'press' Ataru-kun received over the last year."

"Something I myself have recently noticed, especially when it comes to people I asked to help form the Peer Guidance Committee shortly after I transferred into school, Reigi-san," Shūtarō admitted. "Fortunately, my so-called 'angels' were quick to get me up to speed about this issue after my return from Onishuto." As Hajime and his wife Haruka both smiled at that reference to twelve Terran-form Avalonian ex-observers who had been part of the group who had watched over the "Fifth Holy Apostle" during their time in town, he added, "They were more than pleased to help make those fools understand that there are standards that should have been adhered to all along. The ladies who suffered because of them got their justice."

"Fair enough," Hiromi breathed out. "Anyhow, what did those poor wizards at the Zaimu-shō come up with when it comes to properly reintegrating both our friends' businesses back into the national economy, Reigi-san? It's not too bad, I hope."

"Not as bad as originally predicted, Hiromi-chan," Reigi stated as he pulled out sheets of paper to hand to their guests. "The need to increase some elements of rationing won't hit the supply chain that both families have managed to have food and other vital necessities shipped into Tomobiki too much. Since we've long re-developed our 'cottage industries' with the loss of the factories in China over the last decade, unemployment has dropped to near-zero in Japan and all the major keiretsu can benefit even with increased wages to workers and expenditures in further investments. The Minister of Finance is willing to allow us to transfer more funds out of our holdings with Gringotts and convert same to normal currency to aid in loans."

"Our kobaloi friends will get a handsome profit, I hope?"

"As always."

Hiromi nodded as Hajime laughed. "We always wondered how you people were able to get the initial 'seed' funds to all our paramilitary forces," the patriarch of the Mendō of Musashino then declared. "How did that get past the ICW?"

"The leaders of the International Confederation have long deluded themselves into believing they have influence over this land, Oji-san," the matriarch of the Moroboshi of Mutsu stated, earning her more laughter from her guests. "Much that they believed they 'defeated' Yomigawa-gensui's forces in 1945, the final peace treaty signed was only between Japan and America, Canada, the Philippines, both Chinas, the Soviet Union, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand on the magical side of things, with the just-independent magical governments in southern and southeast Asia making their own treaties with Japan later. They don't realize that the Mahō-chokugo no Dokuritsu is still in effect; it was never rescinded by either Tennō or his father. Japan has no legal reason to acknowledge the Confederation. Dumbledore-kōchōsensei knows about that..."

"But none of his subordinates in Geneva do, especially this Ugandan fellow who once was close friends with Idi Amin," Yūjiro finished with a sneer in his voice, making others in the room scowl at the mention of the mad dictator of Uganda from the 1970s. "And if they try to push things, they'll get a very ugly wake-up call from Tennō, especially since Yomigawa-gensui can be recalled to duty in an instant if it was felt necessary to reform the Greater East Asia Liberation Army."

"Of which there are many veterans still alive who would gladly serve again if they were called back to duty," Hajime added. "Much like all those people in that women's brigade that fought under Grindelwald still serve even now."

Hiromi smirked. The insane determination magicals possessed when it came to keeping the secret of magic from getting out to "muggles" had been ultimately wasted ever since the Statute of Secrecy was passed back in 1689 and put into full effect over the next decade. The need to have the Statute enforced using magical proclamations as could only be issued by religiously sanctified heads-of-state automatically put large holes in the veil of secrecy, which would later be expanded on thanks to all the "fringe" groups that could easily operate on both sides of the secrecy divide, usually with the authority of the reigning monarch or president. The Moroboshi Clan, as the core element of the Tenchiaiki Jūkazoku who had served as the silent eyes and ears of the Chrysanthemum Throne for a millennia, had always been excepted from the Statute's clauses. The ki manipulation abilities those who were fully trained in Saikō Jinseijutsu were able to employ easily defeated even the most powerful obliviation or other memory-modification spell a magical could employ to honour the Statute. Even more so, ninjutsu-ka of the Tenchiaiki clans were always able to use their skills to evade even the best warding scheme or life-scan spell which could have been employed to keep "muggles" out of magical areas. Finally, given the total LACK of any sort of "pureblood" gentry in Japan in comparison to Europe and later America, the "fortress" mentality that magicals from those places developed concerning normal people never really appeared among Japanese magicals regardless of their particular school of training.

With that, attempts by the Americans and Europeans to enforce their standards on Japan in the wake of the visit of Matthew Perry's black ships to Edo in the 1850s had been dead aborning from the start. The position of Mahō-Shōgun was given levels of power and control that effectively crippled ICW efforts to influence local society. Those who were elected to that post were always once-students of the Immortal Master, who could call upon the warriors of the Tensei-ryū and its daughter schools to deal with the interloping gaijin at will. Even when the headship of the Tensei was turned over to Dean Raeburn in 1937, that brutal culling of all overt ICW influence on Japan even through the Dejima School continued and was expanded into the occupied territories at the time, effectively provoking the Wars of Liberation. Since the Confederation had to also deal with the threat of Gellert Grindelwald and the potential threat of Svetlána Múrometsa at that time, member governments such as the Magical Congress of the United States who could have overwhelmed the Eight Commanderies were too busy dealing with local affairs to try anything until it was too late to stop Yomigawa Tsukiko's drive to expel the Europeans from Asia and elsewhere.

The Wars of Liberation that rocked magical societies at the same time as the Second World War tore apart the normal world in Europe and the Pacific basin were ultimately successful in so many ways, the aftershocks of those events seventy years before still reverberating to this day. Even if the International Confederation of Wizards still existed as an alliance, it had been critically weakened by that conflict to the point where traditional European dominance over magical affairs was a thing of the past throughout most of the world. Even more so, the memories of the loyalty stone system that Yomigawa and Grindelwald had struggled mightily to see destroyed still haunted many magicals across the former European colonies as close to Japan as Vietnam and other elements of southeast Asia; the very IDEA of allowing anything like that to be reformed would launch a new magical war that would be guaranteed to spill into the normal world, the final destruction of the Statute of Secrecy being the ultimate result of same. Now that the Abyssals had gone and wrecked so much, local magical ministries in South America, Africa, the still-human parts of Oceania and many sections of Asia had forged regional alliances on the same format as what had been proposed by Grindelwald himself after he was made Deputy Minister of Magical Affairs for Nazi Germany in 1938.

Soon, the International Confederation of Wizards would disappear...

...and the _**International Conference of Magical Communities**_ would soon rise.

As a legal adjunct to the United Nations, of course, but the ICMC would rise.

"It is good that the Black Maidens are out there helping us," Shūtarō noted. "Much that I deplore what Master Staff Sergeant Hecht did that hurt Sakura-sensei so much, their willingness to protect all was quite apparent."

"I doubt that Sakura-san will have much to worry about anymore, Shūtarō-san," Hiromi noted. "Much that the thing that Onii-san soulsworded out of her mind yesterday was her 'guardian angel'..." Here, she made finger-quotes on saying that phrase as a wry smile crossed her face. "She was still influenced too much by the other yōma that wanted to make sure they could continue to 'play' with Onii-san's life like they've done for years, which badly affected Sakura-san's magic. That had to stop."

He gazed at her, then he nodded. "Agreed."

"Nē-san!"

Hiromi's head turned over. "What is it, Wakaba?"

A brown-haired, bespectacled woman then came up to join them, copies of several sheets of printout in her hands. "The transcripts you wanted of Kei-san's confession at breakfast today in Sasebo," Hano Wakaba reported as she put the pile down, then handed copies over to her older sister, then Reigi, then the patriarchs of the richest families of Japan. The final copy went to Shūtarō. That made him blink before he paled on seeing the sad look on her face. "I'm sorry, Shūtarō."

He blinked for a moment as the others gazed at him, then he plunged into the report. A moment later, he was as white as a sheet, which made both Hajime and Yūjiro blink before they scanned their own copies. After another minute, the two patriarchs were shaking their heads. "Much that she was an innocent child in many ways, it doesn't surprise me that the kami of the sea reacted THIS way when it came to her 'most faithful'," Hajime said as he drew out his pipe, then moved to light it.

"Lum-san never knew a thing about the Avalonians, Otō-sama!" Shūtarō hissed out.

"He's right, Ji-san," Wakaba stated, making her brother's old rival gape at her. "Lum is many things, but she would NEVER condone something like that. The whole thing with my adopted race was the result of galactic realpolitik getting in the way of people doing the right thing. She'd just be one of many victims of it if the Abyssals — say Nampō-san, for example — decided to seek her directly. Since that bomb was guaranteed to be sent back to the Niphentaxians, any move by her 'most faithful'...!"

Understanding nods all around. "Lum has someone who will love and care for her now, much more than any of us ever could," Otome noted. "She earnestly believed in the goodness of all things. She never was exposed to the harsh reality of what life can do to people. Would she have tried to make peace with the Abyssals? Most likely. And she would have died for it. And that would have unleashed our planet's own version of the Dawn of Power that tore apart Yiziba all those years ago."

"With a galactic Mother of All Fight Scenes tossed in for good measure," Hiromi breathed out. "Reigi-san, let's give our guests a little time to absorb what Kei-san confessed to Onii-san this morning before we continue this meeting."

"I'll get snacks ordered," Reigi stated as the others in the room nodded.

"I'm going to get some fresh air," Shūtarō stated as he rose.

"I'll take you up to the roof," Wakaba offered, holding out her hand.

He smiled as he took it, then they walked out of the room. Otome watched them go, an amused smile on her face...

* * *

 _ **United States Naval Activities Sasebo, that moment...**_

"You are indeed a master of conjuration, Captain Chennalton."

Chennalton tried not to blush at William Costilow's comment while she lowered her wand and took a look around the base gymnasium, which had been commandeered by Yonaga for her upcoming briefing with the last of the Unryū-class carriers. Aso and her sister Katsuragi were due in Sasebo within minutes; once they arrived at the train station, they would be intercepted by Yonaga's sister Izumi and brought to the gymnasium right away. "A near third of my crew were conjuration masters of one sort or another, Master William," the second of the Argo-class battleships stated with a nod of appreciation. "Just as I imagined it when I walked in the real hangar deck after I brought Vrángelja aboard _Yonaga_ a year ago."

"Including _this_ part," Musashi noted as she nodded "forward" towards where the gymnasium's stage stood until Chennalton unleashed her magic on it. "To believe Ataru-kun's granduncle was so wise to see it installed."

"Indeed. I would have loved to see the real Shrine on Onē-sama's decks," Yamato added before she blinked as her fiancée slowly walked over to stand close to the wooden torii gates. Like all the other shipgirls here today, everyone was in their dress white summer uniforms, the many medals and decorations that all of them had earned both as warships and as shipgirls proudly displayed on their jackets. "Yvonne...!" she called out as she approached the quivering Enterprise. "Why...?"

"Look there," the carrier whispered as she pointed.

Yamato blinked, then looked...

...before she gasped on seeing one of the over two thousand boxes that contained the ashes of the dead crew of her sistership in this beautiful replica of the ship's temple that had been installed at the forward starboard end of Yonaga's main hangar deck. Seeing the beautiful kanji and katakana there, the first of her class straightened herself before bowing low. "Please forgive me, Captain Ross!" she then whispered to the departed spirit of one of Enterprise's anti-aircraft gunners.

The carrier nodded...then she clapped her hands twice to announce to the kami of Yonaga's dead that she had come in peace. As the kanmusu and the group of normal humans watched, Enterprise slipped off her dress Oxford shoes, then walked onto the carpeted raised deck of her future sister-in-law's shrine. As one of the Japanese personnel turned the shoes around for the carrier to step back into once she was done her business in the honden, she reached into her jacket pocket, then pulled out a medal case. Opening it, she placed it on the shelf before the mortal remains of Captain (retired) Theodore J. Ross, USN. Bowing to the box bearing her gunner's ashes, she turned to stand at attention at the entrance to the shrine. Taking a deep breath, she clapped her hands to catch everyone's attention, which made all who were watching this brace themselves.

" _ **ATTENTION TO ORDERS!**_ "

That was New Jersey, who had just stepped into the transformed gymnasium in front of Yonaga, she in turn followed by Rear Admiral John Richardson, his pregnant fiancée Mutsu and the others of the Virginian's personal "fleet" of shipgirls and sisters of same, not to mention the destroyer members of Taffy Three. All were in dress whites, even if Mutsu's was modified to take into account her pregnancy. As everyone snapped to attention from the battleship's cry, looks of surprise flashed on many people's faces on noting how BARE the fifth of the Yamato-class' dress top was in comparison to even her own fleet mates. Before someone could ask a question, the second of the Iowa-class gazed on the second of the Yorktown-class, saluting her. "Commander Swanson, please report to all assembled the President's orders concerning your lost crew."

"Aye-aye, Commander Hyde," Enterprise stated as she returned that salute before she cleared her throat. "By order of His Excellency, The Honourable Josiah Edward Bartlet of the State of New Hampshire, President of the United States of America, the Prisoner of War Medal is award posthumously to Captain (retired) Theodore James Ross, United States Navy, who was posthumously declared an honorary member of the crew of Tennō Heika Gunkan _Yonaga_ by order of her commanding officer, Captain Ogawa Gorō. While serving as a member of the ship's company of United States Ship _Enterprise_ , CV-6, he was captured by Imperial Japanese Navy forces during the Solomons Campaign in 1943 and held prisoner until he escaped a year later and returned to active service. His being qualified for that medal yet not being awarded same after the end of hostilities was an oversight by the Department of the Navy, which was corrected by direct order of the Commander-in-Chief."

She then stepped down, slipping back into her shoes just as New Jersey came up. Battleship and carrier exchanged salutes, then Enterprise turned about just as her friend slipped off her own shoes. As Johnston, Hoel and Heermann moved to form an line of review beside Enterprise, Jersey clapped her hands twice before stepping through the torii. Stopping before the box beside Ted Ross' remains, she gave it a salute, then reached into her pocket to pull out a medal case. She opened it, then held it up for people to see, making everyone gape on seeing the two medals there, one a golden star suspended from a blue-white-and-red ribbon, the other a gold-trimmed purple heart with the image of the first president on it, that suspended from a white-trimmed purple ribbon. Placing it before the mortal remains of her lost crew, Jersey stepped back, then saluted again. Turning about, she stopped at the torii and clapped her hands twice again before stepping down to stand beside Enterprise.

"By order of His Excellency, The Honourable Josiah Edward Bartlet of the State of New Hampshire, President of the United States of America, both the Distinguished Service Medal and the Purple Heart are awarded posthumously to Commander (retired) Brent Theodore Ross, United States Navy, who was posthumously declared an honorary member of the crew of Tennō Heika Gunkan _Yonaga_ by order of the Commander of the First Air Fleet, Admiral Fujita Hiroshi," the battleship declared. "While seeking out what happened to his late father, Commander Ross saved the lives of several of _Yonaga_ 's crew while in the Bering Sea four years ago, nearly dying. On being healed aboard _Yonaga_ , he was briefed on the fate of his father, then gladly volunteered to serve as a special advisor to Admiral Fujita, the crew of _Yonaga_ and the officers and men of the Sixth Air Division, doing so until death, sacrificing himself via seppuku to allow the transformation of her living spirit into our honoured friend and shipmate, Captain Itō Yoiko of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces." Jersey then took a deep breath. "Before I turn this over to Captain Itō, allow me to quote my crew's old shipmate on the day he ascended to Heaven with his shipmates:

 _In death, we all die,  
_ _In the shadow of death,  
_ _Yonaga will rise._

Silence fell as people then gazed expectantly on the fifth of the Yamato-class. Yonaga looked upon the replica of her ship's temple, then she walked over to place herself before the living kami of the warships where her two non-Japanese crew once proudly served. The three exchanged salutes, then Yonaga smiled. "I care not for medals. But if such enhances both the captain's and the commander's karma, I will not object, especially since it was at the wishes of your commander-in-chief."

"We kinda wondered why you're chest is so bare, Yoiko!" Jersey joked.

"Only on my scrap medal, Kathy-san." Yonaga then smiled. "At my side, Commanders?"

"Aye, ma'am!" Jersey and Enterprise snapped as they moved to fall in on either side of the fifth of the Yamato-class.

Yonaga then gazed at Chennalton. "If you may, Captain Chennalton?" she then called out. "A proper lullaby to fallen friends."

"Of course, Captain," the second of the Argo-class affirmed.

" _ **ATTENTION ON DECK!**_ " Johnston snapped.

Chennalton raised a bugle to her lips, filling the transformed gymnasium with a haunting melody that tore at the hearts of humans and shipgirls alike. As hands were raised in salute, a deep voice then escaped Yonaga...

 _Day is done, gone the sun.  
_ _From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;  
_ _All is well, safely rest, God is nigh._

 _Fading light dims the sight,  
_ _And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.  
_ _From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night._

 _Thanks and praise for our days  
_ _'Neath the sun, 'neath the stars, 'neath the sky.  
_ _As we go, this we know, God is nigh..._

Hands were lowered...

...then Enterprise and Jersey removed their hats, placing them over their hearts. "Oh, Lord, into Your Hands, we commend their immortal spirits," the former then whispered as she bowed her head to the shrine before her.

"Amen," the battleship then whispered.

"Amen!" the other American shipgirls chanted as one.

Yonaga raised her hands to clap twice. "Izanagi-no-Mikoto, Izanami-no-Mikoto, Great Father and Mother of Japan, welcome these two kami born of foreign shores to remain forever alongside my crew within Mugenku-kaijinja," she solemnly declared. "They served with honour. They served with bravery. They faced their fates as all true samurai faced theirs. As William Adams did for Tōshō Daigongen, both these good warriors served my admiral as spiritual hatamoto in life and in death.

"Let them never be separated until Eternity!"

" _ **BANZAI THEODORE ROSS! BANZAI BRENT ROSS!**_ " Hiei screamed out, throwing her arms to the deckhead. " _ **BANZAI!**_ "

All the Japanese present, human and shipgirl alike, all screamed out, " _ **BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI!**_ "

"They are _**gaijin**_!"

Yonaga's head snapped over...

...then a slight smile crossed her face. "Lieutenant Komura," she said as people turned to glare at Aso. "Welcome, Aso-dono...

"...to the _**Shrine of Infinite Salvation**_."

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Save for the **Prince of the Underworld** (who first appeared in the multi-part _Yatsura_ manga story "Deranged Marriage" [manga chapters #87-91]), **Kurama** (who first appeared in the manga story "Just Like A Woman" [manga chapter #19]) and **Lupica** (who appeared in the sixth movie, _Always My Darling_ ), all the people who were mentioned in the scene on Tahupraemiku were characters that appeared in either _The Senior Year_ or _Lonely Souls_.

Translation list: **Tenchiaiki Jūkazoku** — Literally "Ten Harmonious Houses of Heaven and Earth"; **Mugenku-kaijinja** — Literally "Naval Shrine of Infinite Salvation"; **Hatamoto** — Literally "under the banners" and traditionally translated as "bannerman", this was the term later applied to samurai retainers who directly served the Tokugawa Shōgun (in previous eras, hatamoto always served as senior aides-de-camp to various lords across the nation).


	24. More Special Upgrades for Shipgirls

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, the base gymnasium, Thursday 25 May, two hours after lunch...**_

"The Shrine...of Infinite Salvation?"

"Indeed it is, Lieutenant Komura."

" _ **ADMIRAL ON THE DECK!**_ " John Richardson barked out.

Everyone snapped to attention as a ghostly image appeared at the torii of the replica of Yonaga's ship's temple, forming into the shape of the would-be true commander of the First Air Fleet for Operation Z. Noticed by some — including William Costilow — the background seemed to darken. As he took in the sight of all the people saluting him — even a wide-eyed Aso, who had just been escorted into the gymnasium by her sister Katsuragi and Yonaga's sister Izumi — Fujita Hiroshi nodded as he returned their salutes. As the people in the gymnasium relaxed, he stepped down from the torii, then blinked as destroyer Johnston instantly fell to his side. Gazing at the red-haired Fletcher-class as Aso hissed out in disgust on seeing the gaijin shipgirl DARE stand at the side of Yonaga's beloved admiral, Fujita smiled. "Remain at my side, Lieutenant Johnston, if you may," the native of Nagoya and adopted native of Hiroshima bade. "I may have need of your services soon."

"Aye-aye, sir," the adopted native of Cincinnati bade with a curt nod.

"Admiral!"

Fujita gazed at Aso, who was shuddering in righteous outrage. "Lieutenant Komura, you were not granted leave to speak," the recently-deceased admiral coldly declared, which made the reborn carrier gargle as that dark gaze seemed to pierce into her very soul, finding what was actually there quite wanting. "You should consider this a privilege, young lady. Called back to serve Tennō in such a trying age...then you DISHONOR all Tennō stands for with your actions since you reported for duty at Eta-jima!" He then focused on Katsuragi; like all the others in the room, the adopted native of Chihaya'akasaka in the metropolis of Ōsaka was in her dress uniform, as were Aso and Izumi. "As your sister here has complained often about."

"Onē-san does-...!"

" _ **YOU WEREN'T GRANTED PERMISSION TO TALK, LIEUTENANT! BE SILENT!**_ "

Aso gasped as she felt Kaga's burning gaze fall on her, the older carrier's fists shaking ominously as her copper eyes blazed with the horrible power she had once been granted as an Abyssal. "Thank you, Commander," Fujita said as he smiled at the transformed battleship, earning him a quick blush from the carrier who bore his family name as Fujita Kei before her sense of self-discipline allowed her to restore her face to an emotionless mask. "Captain Itō?"

Yonaga tensed. "Teitoku?"

Fujita fixed his eyes on Aso, who was now openly quaking. "What was the exact incident that Lieutenant Komura was involved in which saw her placed under your tactical command as flagship of the Second Air Fleet?"

Yonaga nodded. "As Commander Asano Hoshie and Commander Kobayashi Okiku both reported to me via electronic mail, Teitoku, the lieutenant was witnessed having a most heated argument with an honoured guest of our nation, Captain Mary ferch Catesby Jones of the United States Navy, concerning the presence of Tennō's most revered friend, His Excellency the Honourable Abraham Lincoln of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, former president of the United States. In that event, the lieutenant was overheard multiple times insulting His Excellency's honour and casting his pursuit of war to preserve the Union as he so vowed before Kami-sama Himself in 1861 against the rebel monsters that formed the so-called 'Confederacy' as nothing short of mass murder. Her lack of understanding concerning the truths of that war so insulted Captain Jones that she was almost tempted to call the lieutenant out in a duel of honour as was the tradition in those days. Even more so, Captain Jones' former opponent from the action of 9 March 1862, Captain Brita Ericsson of the United States Navy, was prepared to serve as the captain's second in such a fight. Fortunately, their sense of fairness forbade them from pursuit of such an honour duel when none came to the lieutenant's side to act as her own second. After all, all who were present at that incident have long understood the hidden truths behind the Americans' civil war. Which the lieutenant clearly did not."

"Permission to speak, Admiral?"

People looked around. "Please do so, Captain Smith," Fujita bade.

Heads turned...

...then many Japanese servicemen instantly bowed as a reborn screw frigate-turned-casemate ironclad came into the room, she in dress whites with the insignia of a captain in the United States Navy on her shoulder boards and only one medal on her left chest over her heart: The Navy version of the Civil War Campaign Medal, it bearing one silver citation star on the grey-and-blue ribbon. As Aso stiffened on sensing Merrimack glare at her, the adopted native of Boston and Gosport turned and bowed low to Fujita, earning her a return bow, equal-to-equal. Aso fought down the urge to squawk at such a sight; she had sensed Kaga ready to lunge over and throttle her for her continued show of disrespect and lack of self-discipline in the presence of flag officers, especially one that was the converted battleship's old division commander. Noting that, Merrimack smiled a secret smile before she presented herself before Fujita, exchanging salutes before she turned to glare briefly at the foolish and ignorant child who had always allowed her mouth to run ahead of what little common sense she possessed.

She then turned back to Fujita. "The commanders' report to your flagship was quite correct as the captain just reported, sir. I am forced to add that she omitted one thing about last night's incident. As you may know, my principal is quite forgiving to those who simply have a lack of understanding of the horrid truths of that war which saw me scuttled to prevent capture, then turned into an ironclad by brave men who were misguidedly led by traitors to all humanity..." She glared at Aso. "Then sent forth to slaughter good sailors who were simply doing their duty as mandated by their oaths to the Constitution of the Union and as demanded by their proper commander-in-chief. Even more so, she actually DEMANDED that I strike my flag and raise the Stars and Bars, abandon my birth-name and take up the name of the Old Dominion that I was given by the rebels when I was forced to fight against my old fleet mates. All because His Excellency was forced to make war on his countrymen..."

" _ **HE ORDERED THE MURDER OF THOUSANDS OF YOUR COUNTRYMEN...!**_ "

Aso gargled as Kaga's battleship-powered grip snared her throat, cutting off the rest of what she had wanted to scream at Merrimack. "Release her, Commander," Fujita ordered. "Lieutenant, control yourself!" he then barked out, making Aso freeze at attention as Kaga let her go. "Did the discipline of the Imperial Navy fall so low in the last years of the Greater East Asia War that the very simple duty of standing at attention and waiting your turn to make a report to a superior officer escapes you, even NOW?!" His dark eyes then glittered with anticipation. "By all rights, I should demand you atone for what you did last night ALONE in the proper manner for the SHAME you brought to Tennō, his late father and this nation as a whole!" That comment made Aso turn as white as a sheet as she felt the strength of her legs start to go. "Insulting a man who has warred against evil since he was a CHILD?! Insulting an honoured ally because she realized the truth of the war she was made to fight, in support of REBELLION and MASS MURDER of all the slaves of the Union alive, sacrificed to VAMPIRES?!" He shook his head. "To paraphrase Mister Henry Sturges when he agreed to train His Excellency to become a vampire hunter: America is meant to be a nation of MEN, not MONSTERS! His Excellency made war to SAVE the Southern states, not destroy them!"

"Speaking as a native of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I resent the fact that you would cast doubt on my ship's honour by deciding to fly the Union flag and serve Their Excellencies — both President Lincoln and President Bartlet — in her quest to redeem herself and protect humanity against the threat of the Abyssals!" a new voice then called out as darkness seemed to shift, allowing the ghost of a man dressed in the bluish-grey of the Confederate States Navy to step out into the open, the two-star insignia of a commander on his shoulders. Coming to a halt, the commander of CSS _Virginia_ in her duel with USS _Monitor_ then saluted the senior officer present. "An honour to meet you, Admiral Fujita. My apologies."

"Do not apologize, Commander Jones," Fujita affirmed with his own salute. "It seems Patricia-san's magic is allowing many whose souls allowed our good ships to fight the sea yōma to come view this event today. You honour us with your presence."

"They should not BE here...!"

" _ **LIEUTENANT!**_ " Kaga roared out.

" _ **KEI! STOP!**_ "

People jolted on hearing that barked voice, then spun aft...

" _ **ATTENTION ON DECK!**_ " Johnston screamed.

" _ **AS YOU WERE!**_ " the frontier lawyer and vampire hunter from Kentucky and later adopted of Illinois called back as people — even Fujita — braced themselves to acknowledge the presence of the Rail-Splitter.

To Yonaga's personal surprise, Abraham Lincoln was now accompanied by a certain nuclear-powered light cruiser that served as America's unofficial fighting element in the worldwide "magical warship" forces that always served to prevent the escalation of the Abyssal War into a true metahuman conflict, just as the seventh carrier of Operation Z served as Japan's unofficial fighting element. To the surprise of everyone who knew of her, Long Beach was in summer whites with no sign of her normal peace symbols and psychedelic clothing, her officer's sword at her side and her four rows of medals and decorations on her chest, topped with the Combat Action Ribbon, the Joint Meritorious Unit Award and the Navy Unit Commendation.

"Since I am the one that ultimately caused the lieutenant to lose such control of herself last night, let her confront me before this court, my friends," Lincoln stated as he fixed his warm hazel eyes on Aso's dark brown eyes, causing the carrier to shudder slightly as she quickly sensed the nigh-immortal former president's aura of power, held back by a gentle heart that had been torn again and again because of a war against the undead that had driven him well past the end of his mortal lifetime. "Much that I know it is your way, Admiral Fujita, my sense of honour and justice and my training as a lawyer forbid me from standing aside and seeing someone accused of crimes without being allowed to defend herself before her accusers."

"Your honour is everything at the end, Mister President," Fujita declared.

"How do you sleep at nights, sir...?"

Lincoln's eyebrow arched as Aso's hissed question echoed through the room, then he wryly smiled. "These days, quite soundly, I admit. Back before and during the war — and yes, in the Score and Four until Dean Raeburn restored my sanity like she did the day she received the Power Jewel — ..." He stopped as the carrier stiffened on the mention of the current grandmaster of the Tensei-ryū. "Are you questioning Master Hosan's wisdom, young lady?" he wondered.

Aso shook her head. "She was not born of this land, sir...!"

"No, she was born in Ontario and — when she wasn't in space training sister Jewel Warriors — she lived in British Columbia or Saskatchewan," the former president stated. "Still, Hirosuke adopted Dean as his child given his inability to father children thanks to what Josef did to him. And he loved her and she loved him. And she AVENGED him by ripping away the skills of the Tensei from those who use them for evil, against the perceived enemies of the Japanese Empire..." He then stared intently at Aso. "...AND the enemies within this land that they needed eliminated to do their evil. Just as Adam Sewell and his cohorts needed to eliminate all those who would oppose the founding of their 'nation of vampires' for their black cause to succeed..."

"It's not the same!"

He stopped, then looked at her. "Are you sure?"

The carrier froze, which made the frontier lawyer sigh. "Lieutenant, it is quite alright to admit you don't know these things," Lincoln stated. "I'm aware of the moves by certain parties within the government in Kyōto to try to make you and your fleet mates ignorant of your own country's history, especially the ugly truths of what drove the war that saw you constructed..." He then shook his head. "Then used as the sacrificial altar to a madness that slaughtered how many in the end?"

"Well over four thousand sailors and soldiers, Mister President."

That was Kaga. "Over four thousand brave young men," Lincoln said with a shake of the head. "With thousands more, civilian and military alike, ready to die for their country to save it from what they saw as foreign devils that would rape and pillage all of Japan at will were they not stopped and they invaded these ancient islands." He looked away, gazing at the beautiful torii that marked the entrance to the Shrine of Infinite Salvation. "Is that where your guilt comes from, Asami?" he asked, making Aso shudder as the pain and melancholy in his voice seared through all her emotional guards. "Knowing that you were used as a target ship to prove the technology that was devised for all the Tokubetsu Kōgeki-tai could work? Having the blood of the brave soldiers and sailors who sacrificed themselves quite readily to show it could work? Knowing then that all those brave people Kei here just mentioned went forth to prove the Old Lie yet again, 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori'..."

"'It is sweet and glorious to die for the nation'," Fujita translated.

"Yes!"

Eyes locked on Aso. "You people understood that once!" the carrier snarled. "In the Revolution, in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War...!" She shook her heads. "By all the gods, the _**Civil War**_ especially! Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Shiloh, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and all those places...!" As Merrimack snarled on hearing that, Aso shook her head. "Then came the Great War. When machines made the business of death in battle like a FACTORY! And you gaijin all got SCARED!" A wry smile crossed her face. "I know that poem, sir! Written by a soldier who served in the front lines in France and Flanders! He wrote it because he wasn't really taught to understand WHY one must die for his country!

"So you all HID!" Aso screeched as she pointed at Lincoln, then Richardson, then every American shipgirl present. "You, your allies in Europe and elsewhere! You hid behind your technology and your 'superior' morals, then DARED force it on people who NEVER wanted to adopt your ways! And when my country decided they'd had ENOUGH of being BULLIED by the 'superior' powers, then went to war in SELF-DEFENCE, you HID again behind your technology and tried to WIPE US OUT!"

She glared at Enterprise. "After all, Yvonne-san...wasn't that what YOUR admiral said after we smacked you fleet mates down at Pearl?!" As many of the Americans present snarled, Aso laughed. "'Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell.'" A smile crossed her face as the second of the Yorktown-class paled on seeing the accusing look cross the face of the last of the Unryū-class. "We knew you would think that way, Yvonne-san! We knew all along! Good men like Admiral Yamamoto, Admiral Nagumo, Admiral Fujita here and so many others had gone to your country to understand what made you tick...and we KNEW! So when you DID try to overwhelm us to make us submit to your gaijin ways...!" She shook her head again. "We vowed even if we lost that we would make you PAY in BLOOD every step of the way!"

Before someone cold say anything, Aso pointed at Yonaga. "And in all this time, you were trapped in that damned cove, Yoiko-san!" she snarled. "Your crew, samurai all, ready to do your part of the mission even after the gaijin smashed us down! Do you want to know how many people REJOICED when they learned you were active up there?! That YOU were the ANGRY ONE that made the enemy RUN wherever you sailed?! And you now wanted to allow GAIJIN to reside in YOUR shrine?!"

People instantly tensed as they focused on Yonaga.

"Lieutenant," the fifth of the Yamato-class said as she allowed her aura to billow, making EVERYONE living save Lincoln, Long Beach and Chennalton shudder as they felt the power of the seventh carrier of Operation Z. "Quote the First Precept of the Imperial Rescript released by Meiji Tennō on the fourth day of the first month of the Fifteenth Year of His Reign."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"I am WAITING, Lieutenant!" Yonaga coldly stated.

Eyes locked on Aso, who was staring in bewilderment at the taller carrier.

"She doesn't know it, Yoiko."

That was Long Beach, who was staring sadly at the last of the Unryū-class. "And you DARE stand before me and call yourself a warrior of Tennō?" Yonaga then hissed out, making Aso quail as the taller carrier glared at her with disgust. She then smiled. There was no humour in it as her grey eyes glowed. "Commander Ross, would you care to tell this pathetic PUPPET what Tennō's revered great-grandfather once bade all those who were born to serve as warriors of this land?"

"Certainly, Captain."

Eyes turned to the torii of the shrine...

...where the image of a tall, well-built, blond, blue-eyed football player from the United States Naval Academy stood, resplendent in his dress uniform, the ribbons in his "salad bowl" displaying the two new ones he had been awarded by what would have been his president were he still alive. As the destroyers all gushed at the sight of Brent Ross, the former intelligence officer stepped down from the torii, moving to stand next to his admiral. Gazing on Aso, who was shuddering in disgust at the sight of the spirit of this gaijin standing beside one of the greatest admirals of the Imperial Navy, Ross took a breath before he bowed his head. "As Tennō so declared..." he began in fluent Japanese, making people gape.

"'The soldier and sailor should consider _loyalty_ their essential duty.'" Here, he paused, then he gazed upon all the Japanese servicemen there, all who braced themselves. "'Who that is born in this land can be _**wanting**_ in the spirit of grateful service to it? No soldier or sailor, especially, can be considered efficient unless this spirit be strong within him. A soldier or a sailor in whom this spirit is NOT strong — however skilled in art or proficient in science — is a mere _**puppet**_!'" As Aso choked on her breath, Ross closed his eyes. "'And a body of soldiers or sailors wanting in loyalty — however well ordered and disciplined it may be — is in an emergency...no better than a _**rabble**_. Remember that, as the protection of the State and the maintenance of Its Power depend upon the strength of Its Arms, the growth or decline of this strength must affect the nation's destiny, for good or for evil.'" He glared intently at the last of the Unryū-class. "'Therefore, neither be led astray by current opinions... _ **nor meddle in politics**_!'" He then stared at the spirit of the man he came to see as his adopted father in the last years of his life. "'But with single heart, fulfill your essential duty of loyalty, and bear in mind that duty is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather. Never by failing in moral principle fall into disgrace and bring dishonour upon your name.'"

"My thanks, Brent-san," Yonaga said. "Even if this society has changed, we who serve Tennō as kantai musume must ALWAYS honour the Rescript! You have not, Aso-dono! Because of that, I should DEMAND you end your life in seppuku for the DISGRACE you brought to Tennō and all your fleet mates! Many a good warrior from America, Canada, Korea, Russia and elsewhere have DIED in the defence of our land! Every time you insult any of their servicemen or their kantai musume, _**YOU SPIT ON THEIR SACRIFICE!**_ " She shook her head. "But you are nothing more than a PUPPET, Aso-dono! A MOUTHPIECE to fools who have no real idea what is happening in this world! I refuse to serve with such a creature! Katsuragi-dono!"

Katsuragi snapped to attention. "HAI?!"

"Get your sister somewhere where I do not see her, then impart on her the proper behaviours expected of a warrior of Tennō!" the taller carrier snarled as she turned her back on Aso. "Ensure she learns the Rescript as all those who should have been PROPERLY taught in years past! And see to it that those noxious fools that have polluted your sister's empty head with all that nonsense have no contact with her! Her behaviour is now YOUR responsibility, Katsumi-san! You are flagship of the Tenth Carrier Division in the Second Air Fleet!" As the raven-haired carrier gasped on hearing that, Yonaga glared at her. "Fail and your lives are BOTH forfeit! And I KNOW how make sure you NEVER return back as Abyssals!" As almost all the shipgirls present squawked in horror on hearing that threat, the seventh carrier turned away. "Dismissed."

As Aso stared in disbelief at the monster she was now seen as answering to, Katsuragi sternly nodded. "By your leave, Captain," she said before staring down at her sister. "Move, sister," she then hissed out.

Aso quickly scrambled out of the gymnasium. Once she was gone and after Hiei slammed the door closed, Chennalton made a motion with her hand...which made the image of the interior of Yonaga's hangar deck and the Shrine of Infinite Salvation vanish, as did the ghosts of Fujita Hiroshi, Brent Ross and Catesby ap Roger Jones. As the lighting in the room brightened, Lincoln turned to gaze upon William Costilow. "I doubt you'll have reasons to object, William."

"I am...concerned, Mister President," the Cosmic Arch-Mage warned.

Save for Yonaga and Long Beach, the shipgirls all gazed warily at him...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, the Toranoseishin Finances Tower, a half-hour later...**_

"Well, it wasn't too much of a mess. Can you get a new tree growing there soon?"

Mendō Shūtarō nodded. Both he and Hano Wakaba were staring at the nearby Tarōzakura Hill. There, elements of the Mendō Construction Group — the overtime being paid for directly by Toranoseishin Finances at Moroboshi Hiromi's order — were clearing the rest of the wreckage from the ancient tree destroyed the previous afternoon. "We have saplings at a farm in Hokkaidō, near one of our larger octopus farms that we set up after Blood Week. Once the ground is re-sanctified — Sakura-sensei will agree to do that when the time comes — we can transplant one of the trees from Hokkaidō to here to become the new Tarōzakura." He then took a deep breath. "Do you have memories of the child Nampō-sama rescued?"

"Falla?" Here, Wakaba sighed. "Not much. She was just a very pale child who seemed to be wandering around town. This was WAY before the existence of Abyssals was out in the general public, remember?" As he nodded, she took a deep breath. "She seemed lost to us. Wanted to explore the town. We figured she came from some other country where she was trapped indoors for so long." As he laughed at that simple assumption by Wakaba's other-self, she frowned. "Then she vanished."

"Taken by that memory-sucking yōkai that's at that ley line nexus under the Tarōzakura, you mean?"

"Yeah. According to Onē-san, the Memory of Tomobiki has been there in one form or another since this town was first founded back after the end of the war. It began to really awaken as its own being thanks to the idiots who predicted the Urusians coming to Earth last year, then moved to seal off the town from the outside world when they realized that Onii-san was going to defend Earth against them." She took a deep breath. "A year full of a crazy circus that took us all away, not wanting to rest." She shook her head. "I can imagine how painful it's been for you and all the others, Shūtarō."

"Was your brother's pain as bad?" he asked, sensing how much Wakaba loved Moroboshi Ataru.

"Worse. Lum's seen it. So has Shinobu-chan. If you want, I can mind-meld with you to show you the highlights of Onii-san's adventures on Okusei, then helping free the Avalonians, then his fight with the Messina Princess..."

"I saw the last one, Wakaba-san," he confessed. "Those blocks that were on YouTube over the last year disappeared in the last couple of days. His battle with that thing to save Roma-sama and Imperio-sama was..." A shudder ran through him. "He was magnificent in that battle. Always willing to stand in the way of that thing when Roma-sama had her flashbacks and Imperio-sama had to help her. Thank the gods that this 'master' of your brother's gave him the power to stand up to that thing." Shūtarō sighed. "I can only imagine how those fool Niphentaxians felt when Moroboshi stormed the factory to free all of Anna-chan's sisters." As her eyebrow arched knowingly, he flustered. "She wants me. As her HUSBAND!"

"Anna-chan's got great taste!" Wakaba noted, making him gape at her. She gave him a shrug and a wan smile, which made him shake his head in mute horror. "Another of the changes that was done by the Guardians on all of us, I'm afraid."

Shūtarō slowly nodded. Much that he could never see himself as ever being friends with Moroboshi Ataru — and much that he was now terrified of the beast that alien kami made him become on Okusei when he was beyond the influence of any Earth kami, much less Redet Lum — he couldn't hate his rival so much that he would wish what had happened to people like Wakaba on him. Given how much Shūtarō's bioroid twin sister Mendō Tachiko still had issues adjusting to being a woman full-time — even with the help of people such as his own "angels" like Wakatsuki Anna — he could only imagine what horrors that Ataru's TWELVE clone-replica "twins" had undergone in the month or so since they had been freed from their containment and allowed to try to make lives for themselves even with the presence of so many Niphentaxians in the "holy city". "I wouldn't think of trying to pursue you, Wakaba-san. I shudder to think of what your brother might do to me in that case."

"And you do have Anna-chan and her own small coven to show you more understanding that Asuka-chan could ever," she noted. "Don't get me wrong. Asuka-chan has her good points. But the idiot downstairs blinded her too much to the real world. Until she finally opens her eyes and sees the world for what it is, we won't let her have her strength back. Shinobu-chan can temper hers, at least." Wakaba then sighed. "Shūtarō, for her sake, we got to get Shinobu out of this town."

He perked, surprised by that serious tone of voice. "Why?"

"Even now, she cares too much," she darkly noted. "I felt it when Mitsuki showed Shinobu-chan the memories of what Onii-san went through." As Shūtarō winced on hearing that, Wakaba added, "You weren't there when Inaba first came to visit us a couple months ago, but Shinobu-chan wished for a future where nothing at all changed with any of us. Still stuck in the same damn rut that we were all in for so long. After what befell Onii-san, that was never going to happen. Even if she's trying her hardest to adjust to the new reality of things, there are way too many reminders of the 'circus' that we all lived through for a year in Tomobiki to not force her back. We're all scared right now that it could destroy her in the end."

A grim nod twitched his head. "You won't force her, I hope."

"No, of course not!" she vowed before taking another breath. "The Inshin Group is expanding its kanmusu support activities north to encompass all girls now based at the Ominato Naval District." As he nodded in understanding, Wakaba said, "Mitsuki will be going there with Saki, Shizuka and Akira to keep an eye on things on behalf of Hiromi-onēsan. Mitsuki will try to talk Shinobu-chan into coming up. It'll give her a break from this place and anyone who wants her 'help' in trying to swing things back to 'normal' even after last night. I know you can't leave this place given this is your clan's traditional lands, but I hope..."

"I'm sure Otō-sama would be happy to have the Mendō Conglomerate aid the Inshin Group in that effort," he vowed, smiling.

She nodded. "Good...!"

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District cafeteria, two hours before supper...**_

"Oh, thank God! We're free of that damn gym!"

"Just for a bit, though..."

The small crowd of students and staff from Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School who had been allowed to come over to the main part of the base for supper ruefully chuckled. Given their current needs, it had been decided to get them meals before the shipgirls or the other members of the base staff would come to enjoy their meals, thus forego any risk concerning any people from "M.C. High" having relapses in the presence of people who certainly weren't ready to deal with such things. "Still, given our situation, finish up quickly so that our escorts can take us back to the gymnasium, girls," Karasuma Rei, the student council president at the time everyone fell victim to Murata Eiichi's "experiments", bade. "Remember, we are guests here and are imposing on the people who do so much to defend us from Satan's monsters. Given what nearly happened to Yū-sama because of Kagurazaka-sensei, we don't want a repeat with other destroyers or submarines."

"Hai!" many of the people there called out.

Nodding in appreciation, Rei sighed as she enjoyed her tea. Seated next to her were her two chief adjutants, the Izumi twins Raika and Fūka. "I wonder where Yui-chan and Yūko-chan are," Raika then wondered.

"I haven't seen either of them since we got brought here," Fūka noted before she smiled as Rei seemed to shudder. "Rei-chan, you have to admit, you really were quite the arrogant bitch to Yūko-chan when we weren't being made to do orgies."

Rei blinked, then she sighed. "Hai. Given what I heard Yūko-san admit to Yui-chan when we were in Nerima, her parents were stupidly harsh to her. It was no wonder she rebelled like she did before she came to the school."

"She cried when she found out what had really happened to you."

People perked, then they turned...

"Hey! Yui! There you are!" Hiiragi Ran whooped in delight while others cheered as a certain raven-haired Niphentaxian-Avalonian hybrid student/cultural observer came up to join them, a relieved smile on her face.

People got out of their chairs and moved to swamp Yui with hugs and kisses, including the old student council president and her closest aides. "I see God and Lyna have both given you new strength, Yui-chan," Rei said as she waved Yui over to sit close to them. "It looks like you finally got a chance to sleep properly. Given how much of a panic you were in for so long..."

"Do you blame me, Kaichō?" Yui said as she took her seat, with Ran moving her tray over so she could sit beside her. "Ran!"

Ran giggled. "Just in case, Yui-chan!"

"Oh! She's got a crush on you, Yui-chan! Watch out!" Shiratori Mio, another former member of Class 1-E with Yui and Ran, then heckled as her dark eyes flashed with amusement at how flustered the alien-born woman was.

"Well, one must applaud Ran-san's good taste," Rei added, a twinkle in her eyes.

Yui turned as red as a cherry. " _ **KAICHŌ!**_ "

Laughter filled the cafeteria...

...before a voice that was heavily tinged with a mixture of Toscano and Veneto Italian breathed out from nearby, "Oh! Why is it the Japanese have such beautiful nostromo to serve their fanciulle della flotta?! It's so unfair...!"

" _ **PAOLA!**_ " another woman shrieked with the same type of accent, making heads snap over to allow the girls from Kyūshū to behold the name ship and her youngest sistership of Italy's most famous heavy cruiser class. " _ **CONTROL YOURSELF, YOU DRUNKEN FOOL!**_ " Zara snapped out, keeping to Japanese so that the poor girls who probably were about to be exposed to an impromptu strip show from Pola wouldn't have to endure that. " _ **THAT'S NOT THE WAY TO BEHAVE BEFORE CIVILIANS!**_ "

"Zita-sama, it's alright..."

Zara froze, then she looked over...

...before she paled as a small crowd of people in school track suits all rose as one, looking at both her and her swaying sister with hungry eyes. The veterans of the Battle of Cape Matapan off the southwest coast of Greece in 1941 recently helped escort an "over the top" convoy from Europe to Japan using the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic islands two weeks before; it was that mission that revealed the existence of the princess on Little Diomede Island that saw Yonaga eventually reunited with her fleet mates. As Pola canted her head as her addled mind tried to understand what made the civilians before her do that, Zara felt her breath catch in her throat as she sensed the raw _**hunger**_ in those girls' eyes, which instantly reminded her of the night she was sunk west of Crete. "No...il Fantasma Grigio...per favore non farmi del male...per favore, per favore non affondarmi...!" she moaned out in Italian as she collapsed to her knees and began to babble.

" _ **ZITA-SAMA!**_ "

"Oh, Lyna!" Yui gasped after she recovered from being overwhelmed by the eruption of lust from her friends. " _ **NO! AKIRA-CHAN, STOP! GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF! SHE'S HAVING A FLASHBACK! BACK OFF! LEAVE HER**_...ummmpth!"

That was thanks to Ran, who just overwhelmed the alien-born student with a very tongue-filled kiss. "Arigatō, Ran-san," Rei then calmly said as she raised her hand just as a platoon of Foresters stormed into the room.

The Canadian magicals all screamed as an opaque force-wave emerged from Rei's hand to slam into them and force them against the windows of the main entrance. "Fūka! Raika! Please keep everyone away from interfering!" the student council president bade. "Zita-sama and Paola-sama have long suffered enough for what Satan allowed to let happen to them! Akira-san will give Zita-sama comfort." She then licked her lips in anticipation. "I will be Paola-sama's lover."

"Hai!" the Izumi twins said as they raised their hands.

Additional bubble waves formed from their hands, which made the Foresters — who had apparated themselves out of range — unleash a storm of stunning spells their way. Relaxing herself, Rei smiled as she advanced on Pola, who had slipped off her black corset and was moving to unbutton her blouse, once again revealing to those who knew of the habits the last of the Zara-class that she had no foundation garments under her red-and-black sea uniform. Purring in anticipation, the student council president of "M.C. High" licked her lips before she slid into the seat next to Pola, she leaning into gently breathe into the cruiser's ear. That made Pola gasp before she looked right, then she smiled. "Buon pomeriggio, signorina..."

Her voice was cut off as Rei lunged in to swamp her with a warm kiss. At that very moment, Yanagi Akira managed to shift the moaning Zara into her lap at a nearby table, she cooing sweet nothings into the shuddering cruiser's ears. " _ **NO! AKIRA-CHAN! STOP!**_ " Yui screamed out after she was able to push Ran away from her to try to force her other classmate from raping the lead of her class of cruisers. " _ **STOP! SHE'S HAVING A FLASHBACK! YOU CAN'T**_...awkkk!"

Ran again swamped Yui with a kiss...

...as Akira's lips then gently devoured Zara's.

Seconds later, two massive explosions of energy blew out every window in the cafeteria!

* * *

 _ **Minutes later...**_

"Ugh...Benedetta Maria...what happened to me...?"

Pola's grey-brown eyes fluttered, then she groaned, surprised to wake up and not suffer the hideous headaches she often get when she went on a drinking binge. Shaking her head, she looked around...before she tensed on sensing someone close by, making her turn before she grinned. "Buon pomeriggio, Junko!" she hailed Jun'yō. "I just had the most strange dream..."

"About a hot girl kissing you to help chase away the hangover?" the liner-turned-carrier asked as she offered a small bottle of what the last of the Zara-class knew would be Jun'yō's own special magical hangover remedy.

"Sì..."

"Sorry...dear God, forgive me...I'm so sorry, Paola-sama..."

Pola perked, then looked to starboard...

...before she gaped on seeing the beautiful, tall and statuesque woman seated next to her, her face awash with tears flowing from forest-green eyes as she gripped the sides of her head while apologies fluttered from her lips. Surprised to see such a lovely woman so unstrung, Pola then perked as her own faeries quickly began downloading information into her mind, making her own eyes go wide with horror as the full scale of what befell this poor woman sank in. She then perked on hearing sobs from nearby, making her look to port to see another woman dressed as Karasuma Rei was, now in the lap of her own sister, also weeping as Zara comforted her. After another flash of information was downloaded into her mind by her combat staff, Pola shuddered as her whole body started to glow. "HEY! Cool it off with the flames, Paola!" Jun'yō snapped. "You know...!"

"It's alright, Commander Kakuta," a strange voice then hailed, footfalls heralding the approach of the commanding officer of "W" Commando of the Royal Canadian Foresters. "We've known all along about the affiliation between the Commanders di Lerici and the Chiavarone." Kenneth Bolton then focused his mage-sight on the weeping student council president now seated beside Pola. Shaking his head, he sighed. "I best warn Lady Negako about this. We know Maestro Sinclair's in country now, helping train the Vongola Decimo. People like him always get worried whenever shipgirls who have that power tap into their Dying Will Flames in public, even by accident. Excuse me, Commanders." With a salute, he turned to walk away.

Zara, Pola and Jun'yō returned that salute, then the onmyōji carrier focused her own mage-sight on her beloved drinking buddy and her sister. A second later, she groaned. "Well, I dare say congratulations are in order..."

Pola shuddered. "Where is the bastard who STARTED this, Junko?!" she snarled as she glared intently at her drinking friend, trying mightily to keep her Dying Will Flames suppressed. "What he did to Rei and her friends was inhuman! WHERE?!"

"Chill, Lola-Pola! The square just revealed himself."

Pola perked, then looked over to see a certain American nuclear-powered cruiser standing nearby, leaning against one of the columns supporting the cafeteria roof. Jun'yō — who had just been joined by Ryūjō — blinked before their mage-sight nearly blinded them by the aura Long Beach projected. "Ehi! Naomi! Stop that!" Zara snapped as Yanagi Akira — not to mention the other students from Saint Maria Christos Girl's High who had been in the cafeteria at the time two of their peers literally bonded with the two Italian cruisers; right now, a flock of healers from the Tōmagun and "W" Commando were scanning them — gazed at the shipgirl flower child. "You know how much your power can blind people with special sight!"

"Damn! She IS a powerful one!" Ryūjō said with an admiring whistle.

"She's la Pazza, Ryōko," Pola supplied.

That made the carriers gape. "Damn! We better go hide Hoppō-chan," Jun'yō mused.

Sure enough...

" _ **AH! CRAZY ONE! MAMA! SARA-PAPA! SAVE HOPPŌ!**_ "

Both carriers winced. "Too late," Ryūjō breathed out as they looked over...

...to see Nagato and Saratoga nearby, the latter's skirt fluttering thanks to a certain child Abyssal having hid herself from the Crazy One. "Chill, Dionne!" Long Beach then said. "Lola-Pola and Zizi here just got a dose of free love from Rei and Akira!" As both alumni of "M.C. High" flustered in denial concerning what they just did being "free", the cruiser added, "Turned them into CAGHs, like Sonia was turned into a BBGH when she went to watch the sub races with her squeeze!"

" _ **STOP CALLING ME 'ZIZI', NAOMI!**_ " Zara shrieked.

" _ **WAIT!**_ " Pola snapped. " _ **WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, NAOMI?!**_ "

Long Beach moaned. "Man, Lola-Pola! You take acid with all that wine you guzzle?!" she demanded before she walked up to stare into the other cruiser's eyes. "Charlie-Alpha-Golf-Hotel. Meditate on the new stuff you just got!"

Pola gaped as the hull classification code finally sank in, then she closed her eyes as she sent her now quite-sober crew scrambling about her hull to see what had just happened to her. Watching this, other shipgirls gaped as the ghostly image of the last of the Zara-class as a warship appeared around their friend. Now a full flush-deck cruiser with her aft twin turrets for her 203 millimetre 53 calibre Modelle 1927 cannons raised a deck up, she had been stripped of all extra armament even if four OTO Melara/Oerlikon KBA 25 millimetre 80 calibre remote weapon systems mounts were based on either side of her funnels and four OTO Melara 76 millimetre 62 calibre Strales rapid-fire cannons flanked her forward superstructure and the area between her funnels at the level of her old forecastle deck. Now on her superstructure deck one level up, four clusters of 32-cell SYLVER A50 vertical launch systems were sited, they clearly meant to launch the Aster 30 surface-to-air missile. On her now squared-off quarterdeck, a landing pad for two NH Industries SH90 anti-submarine helicopters was sited, that over an internal hangar deck. Finally, her forward superstructure was topped with the spheroid dome for the MFRA active electronically-scanned array radar system, which was almost as good as the AEGIS the younger cruiser had been refitted with once she became a shipgirl. Naturally, other sensor systems and fire control units bristled across her superstructure.

"Benedetta Maria...!" the last of the Zara-class moaned as she glanced over at her sister. "You, too?!"

"Sì," Zara breathed out. "What just happened to us, Reiko?"

Nagato shook her head. "That's a bit of a story, Zita-san..."

* * *

 _ **The Chiiori House (thirty kilometres southeast of Shikokuchūō**_ _ **on Shikoku, 150 kilometres west of southwest from Ōsaka), an hour later...**_

"Strange that the Erstes Bataillon of the most infamous magical fighters from the Befreiungskriege chose THIS place as their field headquarters when they came here," a strange voice then hailed from just outside the main doors of the multi-century old farmhouse that had been lovingly restored by two foreigners after it had been discovered abandoned by one of them back in 1971. "Who in the name of God would have ever considered looking for you here, meine Oberstleutnante?"

Hearing that from the third of the Admiral Hipper-class cruisers, Anna Wittmann smiled before she sipped her coffee as she gazed over the well-maintained fields and forests around Chiiori. She was in the main room of the old farmhouse, the fire in the nearby irori magically charged to remove any chills. On her entering the place, Prinz Eugen was quick to sense the many powerful magical wards that had been erected to protect the beautiful old minka from any conceivable damage. The only visible sign of the house's current inhabitants was the magical tents set alongside the southern forest line and the flagpole in front of the farmhouse, it flying the black banner of the Schwarze Mädchen with the Roman "I" in the canton to identify the specific battalion. Having come through the nearby village of Higashiiyatsuri to visit her new friend, Eugen had been quick to sense the outer layers of mundane-repellent charms that prevented the curious from probing too deeply here.

"The Iya Valley has always been the main hearth for local mystics and magicals native to Shikoku," Anna said as Eugen slipped off her shoes, then stepped onto the raised deck of the main room; windows had been opened to allow a fresh breeze to flow through the old thatched-roof farmhouse. "I believe Herr Kerr and Herr Florence never realized all along that this had been a magical's home in centuries past. The runes used to ward the place away from any snooping normal magistrate were badly eroded by the time of Herr Kommodore Perry's first visit to this land in 1853. Given the chaos that erupted among the acht Kommandanten at the time as the leicheblut schweinehunde in Geneva moved to take advantage of that to impose Western standards of magic on the land, it didn't surprise me that magical oversight over this place was ultimately lost."

"Surprises me that the local normals are so accepting of you and yours. I saw your chief adjutant and her wife in the Higashiiyawada Market haggling with one of the farmers when I came here," the cruiser noted as a house elf popped in with some coffee. "Danke, meine Frau!" she said, making the cute creature squeal in embarrassment before she popped away. "You should have seen the high school and middle school girls staring at them in admiration for holding hands and sharing kisses, Anna. I think the older women in town seemed not to care at such an open expression of emotion between them."

"There was an observation post set up by our Niphentaxian 'friends' in Nishimine down the highway from here, Catarina. It was destroyed by the Abyssals a year before Blood Week, freeing all the assistant observers; Frau Kasuga came by a little later to remove the loyalty lock from their DNA," the native of Ramsau said. "They kept silent of their true origins and masked their former 'master's' presence from outside scrutiny, but they were always there to help the locals rebuild from the attack. I suspect people in the area got used to their forging marei'cha bonds with each other once they were freed to seek such relationships, then said nothing more." Her eyebrow arched. "They were 'eccentric', even the 'gaijin' among them."

Eugen giggled before she perked as a voice called out, "Anna!"

Anna looked over, then she smiled as a beautiful Nordic blonde with blue eyes in civilian clothes came up, she accompanying a distinguished elder man in dated fashion that would have been seen as in the vogue in the 1920s. The commander of the First Battalion recognized him right away. "Herr Oberst Graves, it's been quite some time," she said as Percival Graves bowed his head to her. "I assume you come bearing a message from the International Confederation for me."

"Demanding the arrest of you and your whole command, of course," the older man said, earning him laughter from his host and his current escort. She, Eugen was quick to realize, was Major Danielle Larssen, the Norwegian-born commander of No. 14 Jäger Company. Born in Furnes near Oslo and an alumnus of Læsø Søfort from the Mistresses' Class of 1937, she was the one who was credited for the effective wrecking of the Durmstrang Institute in 1943, which had been a hotbed of pureblood resistance to Gellert Grindelwald's Greater Good philosophies, which ultimately demanded an even playing field among magicals of all stripes to ensure that the "muggles" would be guided properly. While always put down by the purebloods of Norway because of her "treason" even to this day, Danielle — "Danni" to her close friends — had been made a Grand Officer of the Order of Sigurd by order of King Harald V in response to the support of many Durmstrang alumni to Voldemort's rebellion in Britain. Such was enforced by a Magical Royal Decree issued by His Majesty, which served as a slap in the face to Ígor' Kárkarov's allies and was a harsh reminder to the purebloods of Norway of the ONE power they could never overcome.

Graves bowed as he handed the rolled parchment over. Seeing Danielle nod in assurance that she had removed any magics that could have come to hurt her friend and commander, Anna took it, then unsnapped the seal to roll the parchment out. Gazing at the words there, the native of Ramsau shook her head. "You can tell a leicheblut schweinhund wrote this," she then said with a wry smile. "Supported by known conservative allies in Europe, I see." She shook her head. "Is this idiot BEGGING to have Jessica Dover swoop down from Strasbourg to eat his soul?!" she then demanded, which made the American's eyes go wide. "Percival, please! Don't tell me you didn't know that she's a part of the Eurocorps' command team now?!"

That made the former Director of Magical Security in the 1920s and 1930s blink before he shook his head. "Honestly, Anna, I didn't know that," he then admitted. "The people in charge of the European Community really hid that well. People should have suspected the other members of the War Hawks had returned to duty once it was announced that Professor Raeburn was made the new commander of the Canadians' special operations forces and all the Dominion's magical forces were seconded to her. The Supreme Mugwump Emeritus' appointment as Flag Officer Commanding the First Battleship Squadron should have warned people that the Soul-Eater was out there somewhere. Not to mention what the Hunter is doing."

"It just got out through 'W' Commando, Anna," Danielle added. "Martin just destroyed the Sable Island Princess with Johannes Heribald's and Mary Brown's help. That removes a direct threat to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick."

Anna nodded, her lips quirking. "Did you read this ahead of time, Percival?"

"Actually, no," Graves stated. "So what did the idiot say?"

Laughter filled the air around Chiiori. "The expected verbal garbage one might expect from someone like him," Anna stated. "He's also directly violating the tenets of the Treaty of Reconciliation passed in 1950 — which was accompanied by magical executive decrees from the heads of state of all nations whose citizens formed my brigade — that exonerated us for any 'crimes' we did beyond what would be seen as normal actions during a time of war, without recognition of any 'special' rights for purebloods as then existed in Europe." As Graves shook his head — he was a pureblood, but always strove to understand no-maj society as best he could, mostly to help better protect his fellow magicals — the commander of the First Battalion added, "The Ugandan Ministry of Magic at that time voted in FAVOUR of that treaty and it was magically enforced by His Majesty King George through a Magical Royal Proclamation that was issued by the colonial governor at the time, Sir John Hall. That was seen as part of the Magical Constitution of the land once Uganda became a republic in 1962 as so decreed by President Edward Mutesa. Not even during the time of Idi Amin's rule was that particular decree ever dismissed."

Graves shook his head. "Merlin...!"

"Are they TRYING to lose their magic?!" Eugen demanded. Being one of Harry Potter's many tutors whenever she was in Japan, the cruiser knew the vicious cost violating such magical oaths of loyalty to one's head of state could be.

"They think they're above that sort of thing, Commander von Savoyen," Danielle warned. "Since normal heads of state don't often interfere with magical affairs, the staleblood idiots think they can get away with this sort of thing since such loyalty oaths aren't normally enforced in public like that by people such as the Heavenly Sovereign or your President. Only when it's shoved into their faces does it really hit home. Usually too late for their magic and their lives, of course..."

The Irish-born native of Los Angeles sighed. "Well, too bad. I'm getting tired of relaying these type of messages to Konoemon and his friends. I know Japan just TOLERATES the Confederation since the Magical Imperial Rescript of Independence is still in effect." He shook his head. "I can't make any recommendation concerning Marshal Yomigawa's recall to duty, Anna. My oaths to the Confederation can only be overrode by Albus with us both IN THE CHAMBERS at Geneva AND with a majority vote of the delegates supporting him." He smirked at her. They had duelled once in Western Europe when the former leader of America's DMLE was the commanding officer of the 71st Cavalry Regiment of the Magical Corps, United States Army. They were "friends" in a way. They also respected each other; even if he had to help preserve the status quo, Graves knew what had driven Anna Wittmann to put on the uniform of the Black Maidens and join forces with Grindelwald. "You can."

The native of Ramsau sighed as she held up her right hand, allowing a ball of magic to form over the palm. As Graves gaped at such an incredible display of wandless magic, Anna declared, "Colonel Graves, on my oath to my coven sisters and in my place as commanding officer of the First Battalion of the Black Maiden Brigade of the European Corps, now seconded to the Eight Imperial Magical Commanderies of the State of Japan, I place you and your staff in Mahora under my protection and grant you full parole to defend yourselves against those who would attack you for your 'treason'. This I vow before Magic Itself! _**SO SOLL ES SEIN!**_ " she then stated as her magical aura billowed to "seal the deal", reaching out to protectively wrap around Graves for a moment before it dispersed. "Major Larssen, my compliments to Major Santelli and Major Michels. Have them come to me now. We'll be having Colonel Graves and his staff as our guests for the time being."

Danielle snapped to attention. "At once, my Colonel."

She apparated away. As Graves nodded in appreciation at that show of support from his old opponent, Anna turned to the lone shipgirl present. "Commander von Savoyen, my compliments to Admiral Richardson. I'll get you a copy of this to relay to him so he can read this himself, then relay it to President Bartlet and Secretary Quahog. Even if the conservatives in the Magical Congress still have issues with us, I know the constitutionalist members in Manhattan would see this a direct challenge to American magical sovereignty. I will be writing a message to the Heavenly Sovereign through Professor Konoe, recommending he recall Marshal Yomigawa to resume her place as Mahō-Shōgun and recall the Liberation Army to duty. Since the veterans of the Thunder Companies as well as the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom are all back and ready to press the fight..." A dark smile then crossed her face. "Well, let's make it a FULL reunion of the old crowd."

Eugen smirked. "Jawohl, meine Oberstleutnante."

"Colonel?"

Graves perked, then he turned...

...to gaze upon the woman who had once been seen as BOTH the most hated AND most _**admired**_ witch in America in the 1930s. "Sergeant Major Mitchell. Or is it 'Sergeant Major Schultze'?" he asked as he nodded to her wedding ring.

"Chris and I kept our maiden names," Regina Mitchell said as she gave the man who had once been tasked to track her down an amused look. "You're looking much better these days, Director. A lot more distinguished. Nice to see that the stalebloods haven't weighed you or the others from the old crowd down even after the Rittmeister sent his friends to clear that stinking bunch out of the Woolworth Building in 1942." She then gazed on Anna. "What the hell just happened?"

"Read," Anna said as she handed the parchment over...

* * *

 _ **Strasbourg in France, Headquarters of the European Corps in the Quartier Aubert de Vincelles, that moment (local time: Breakfast)...**_

"What the hell is that...?"

Hearing that question from the Deputy Commander (Specialized Warfare) of his multi-national command, Generalleutnant Jürgen Weigt perked before he turned to look outside the windows of the officer's lounge located in the small compound a kilometre west of the bank of the Rhine and three kilometres southeast of downtown. As shouts of alarm echoed from outside echoed with flares of energy, the former armoured officer shook his head. "Where are they from, Jessica?" he asked.

Eyes locked on the only person dressed in CADPATs among them, the two blue maple leaves of a major general in the Royal Canadian Air Force on her chest-mounted slip-on. Glancing towards the west — where an old airfield was located; it had long been abandoned — Jessica Dover's blue eyes glowed for a second as she reached out with her own mesonium charged abilities to scan who had just teleported there. "Mercenaries," she said, keeping her voice even so as to not frighten the junior officers and men when she normally allowed the beast that had burned inside her soul for decades to partially take over. "No doubt sent here by someone in Geneva. Both the French and German ministries know to leave Elizabeth's people alone."

Eyes then focused on the blonde with the blue-grey eyes, looking as young as Dover, seated nearby. Her uniform was a study of contrasts. As Britain had yet to activate the Specialized Warfare Fencibles — its equivalent to the Specialized Warfare Regiment of Canada — the current Viscountess Gibbon of Craiglockhart had been granted a commission in the German Army at the rank of brigadegeneral, the equivalent of her old Magische Reichsarmee rank of generalmajor. One look at her camouflage top would have German servicemen not in the know about magic blink in confusion. The Union Flag of her true homeland was on her shoulders below her golden wreathed one "pip" star rank insignia. Her flecktarn jacket also bore the cloth version of her Magical Assault Badge in Gold over her right breast pocket; of course, given modern German sensibilities, the swastika that had been at the base of that wreath of laurel under crossed duelling wands had been removed.

"Probably some idiot in Geneva," Elizabeth Gibbon stated as she shared an amused look with her deputy commander and predecessor as leader of the Schwarze Mädchen, Oberst Livia Dietrich. The newly-anointed Countess of Wells had finished dealing with her fully taking over the seat of her distant cousins' family within the British Wizengamot the previous evening before she came back from Scotland. Much to the amusement of all the senior staff of the Eurocorps — all of whom were now bound to a Fidelius which allowed them to know of magic yet not speak of it to people not authorized to know that secret — the many house elves who had gladly served the families the Black Maidens had recently taken over or revived were quite happy to make sure the "good muggles" who fought to help defend all of the Continent from the nasty Abyssals were cared for. It made for rather interesting discipline issues at times, but General Weigt certainly didn't mind it at all. Even better, magical inspectors from le Ministère de la Magie in Paris were under direct orders of the President himself to NOT raise a stink about the high number of magicals based at Strasbourg, much less pass it on to friends in Geneva. "I should get a report on that..."

The bursting sound of air thanks to apparition echoed in the room, allowing a pretty yet shockingly young-looking Spanish soldier to appear. "Mi Teniente General," Fernanda Núñez y Santiago declared with a click of her combat boots in the old German style. Like her commanding officer, the native of Jerez de la Frontera near Cádiz bore her true homeland's flag on her shoulders even if she was in the proper field uniform of a gefreiter in the German mountain infantry. "Please excuse me for coming in like this, but Teniente Coronel Sutone requested I relay this for your attention. The intruders are now secured." She held up a roll of parchment. "An international arrest warrant for the whole of my brigade."

Weigt nodded, holding out his hand. Fernanda — who always projected had the eager disposition of a fresh recruit determined to pass all her training courses no matter what; then again, she graduated from the Academia de Magia de Tarraco in 1939 — came over to place the parchment in his hand. Snapping open the seal, he unrolled the strip of magically-treated goatskin to gaze on the well-written words there; he knew that the commander of the Third Battalion of the Schwarze Mädchen, Oberstleutnant Aimée Sutone of Mons in Belgium, would have had all compulsion, tracking and other spells disabled before seeing such delivered into a normal person's hand. After a moment, the native of Ochtendung in Rhineland-Pfalz shook his head at the disgusting language barely masked in that letter. "Liza, when you and the others told me how bad the prejudices against normal-born magicals are, I thought you were joking. Seeing this..." He shook his head before handing it to Dover.

The Soul-Eater of the Dnipró took it, then scanned what was there. All the normal officers then tensed as her eyes began to glow with the crimson fire which indicated that the millennia-old monster that was bound to her heart-and-soul was about to come bursting out from behind very fragile mental guards to seek out new targets to consume. Fortunately, having the Royal Canadian Air Force's representative in the War Hawks assigned as the leader of the Eurocorps' magical/metahuman wing had done wonders for the whole formation. In recent years, the rise of doomsday cults that were now predicting the end of humanity with the rise of the Abyssals had seen several try to infiltrate national military forces to disrupt them from within. Fortunately, a small legion of non-magical telepaths from across the Continent — augmented by normal-born magical Legilimency masters and mistresses — had been available to keep major formations from being wrecked by such maniacs until Jessica Dover got on the scene and began seeking them out as morning "snacks"; in that, the native of Winnipeg had got the blessing of the United Nations and the European Commission. " _ **Idiots...!**_ " she hissed out, her voice booming slightly. " _ **Liz.**_ "

"If I may, mi General...!"

Dover held up the parchment for Fernanda to take, then the reconnaissance soldier from Andalusia jogged over to hand the parchment to her commanding officer. Taking it in hand, Elizabeth scanned through it before she smirked. "Oh, we're going to have a whole tonne of nimmibs come out of this mess," she said before she handed it over to Livia. "Nanda, tell Aimée to get the prisoners over to Linn's little playpen at the Trischen Academy right away. Make sure you prepare something very nice and cute for young Miss Trista so she doesn't overreact on hearing that her new friends are in the midst of being attacked by 'idiot sparkles'. Pass it on to Linn to make those fools sing like canaries. I'm sending a copy of this to Albus."

"Sí, mi General! Discúlpame, por favor!"

And in another burst of sound, Fernanda apparated out of the room. "Damn! How many times a day are people in that half-company supposed to do that, Brigadier?" the British liaison officer from the Ministry of Defence asked.

"Fifty, with minimum ten times in a row, maximum range of five kilometres each time, Colonel," Elizabeth said with a proud smile. "Marshal Yomigawa and her teachers were very thorough in making sure that platoon could do their jobs."

"Amazing," Weigt breathed out. "Going for a walk, Jessica?"

Dover's eyes were STILL glowing. " _ **What do you think, Jürgen?**_ "

"Don't get a stomachache," the deputy commander for the normal side of the Eurocorps then chided as he raised his coffee cup to salute the veteran of the metahuman side of World War Two. "We'd hate to explain it to General Raeburn."

A churlish smile crossed the Soul-Eater's face as she rose to leave...

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District Headquarters, suppertime...**_

"Are you girls feeling better now?"

"Sì, Ammiraglio," Zara stated as Pola sat back in her chair, sipping the wine she always had with her wherever she went. "Fortunately for both of us, the corvette and fregate from Canada who visit us love to allow our crews to stand watches aboard. While they're armed with American systems, the similarities between what they were outfitted with and what Paola and I have now are enough to allow my crew to try them out with little issues. Since the Sesto Squadrone is here now..."

"I can make arrangements for them to do trials with the destroyers once they're finished replenishing their supplies, Admiral."

Gotō Kiichi nodded his thanks to Warrior; the flagship of the Canadian Pacific Fleet had been called in the instant the news of what just befell the two Italian cruisers got to her. A considerable crowd of shipgirls and normal human personnel had gathered in the main conference room of the base, which was lined on multiple sides by flat-screen televisions to allow worldwide video conferences. "I'm sure Admiral Bergamini will appreciate that, Captain Houghton," he said to the blonde Viking-like woman in the normal Royal Canadian Navy pale grey skinsuit before he gazed then on his secretary ship. "Commander Yamamoto, please make sure Commander MacDonald and her friends get priority in being re-supplied so the commanders here can work up their new gear before returning to their duties. They're scheduled to head to Vancouver on the next convoy run in a week's time. It'll do our Italian friends a tonne of good to have them return to Taranto battle-ready."

"I'll make sure Arisa-sensei understands that, Teitoku," Nagato stated.

"So what's this about Naomi-san finding where Murata-hakase is?" Ōyodo asked.

Eyes locked on the tall carrier that had gladly raced over via phoenix from Sasebo once she heard what had befallen Zara and Pola. Also with her was the first American shipgirl to get an "upgrade" thanks to one of the girls affiliated to Saint Maria Christos Girl's High School. "Naomi-chan sensed something seemed to push into the girls the instant Paola-san and Zita-san came into the cafeteria," Yonaga stated. "Whether or not it was deliberate or simply automatic, though..."

"Instant girls the square feels need to go to sub races show up, those chicks get horny," Long Beach said from her place close to the conference room's main door, arms crossed. "Only way to fully get rid of it is to make sure they get a good squeeze."

Zara awked as Pola shook her head. "Naomi, there's no honour in this...!" the latter sputtered.

"The square dude that mucked their heads up and stoned them with black crystals don't care anymore, Lola-Pola," the nuclear cruiser warned, making some of the people in the room snicker at that nickname for the last of the Zara-class. As Zara herself gave Long Beach an annoyed look — Pola herself didn't seem to care — the adopted native of California and Massachusetts shrugged. "Crazy as this will sound to you cats, the dude felt it was wrong that folks like us have to go and ice the square pigs out there without some free love for us waiting when we hit port. He was inspired by A-man's letter to the papers when he cooked up names for everyone. 'Course, 'cause his grandpa worked for the Big Y's old 'bosses'..." She made finger-quotes.

Sighs escaped everyone in the room. "This is just too fucking fucked up!" New Jersey muttered from Admiral John Richardson's office in Sasebo; there was now a multi-way conference call being managed by Ōyodo concerning what was happening, also involving Zara's and Pola's top administrative boss in Taranto. "We can't keep caging those poor girls in that gymnasium on the island there, Admiral! Doing that's going to kill them in the long run. They don't deserve that."

"Then maybe we should let them do what Murata-hakase wanted them to do under controlled circumstances, Sempai."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **BUCKY! HOW COULD YOU EVEN**_ **THINK** _ **OF SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!**_ " Kongō shrieked as everyone stared at Fubuki.

" _ **FUJIKO-SAN! YOU'RE NOWHERE READY FOR**_ **THAT** _ **!**_ " Nagato gasped, looking as if she was about to have a heart attack.

" _ **THIS IS INSANE! WHAT THE HELL ARE THE CRUISERS TEACHING YOU, KID?!**_ " Iowa shouted from next to Jersey.

" _ **WHOA! COOL YOUR JETS, DUDES! LAY OFF HER, HUH?!**_ "

Everyone save Yonaga yelped at the sharp blast from Long Beach. "Man! You guys all got selective hearing or what?!" the nuclear cruiser then snapped, which made all the shipgirls save the seventh carrier of Operation Z and the first modern destroyer all wince at that sharp criticism from the nuclear cruiser. "When I told you all that I got a ping off where the square dude's now based at, I WARNED you all that he was being really hush-hush about it! It only was a brief flash through the Astral Plane when it all went down! I couldn't be sure that where I thought he was when Zizi and Lola-Pola got free love from Akemi and Rei is where the dude's really crashing at! 'Sides, what's to stop him from doing a hit and fade, huh?!"

People gazed at her, then Gotō sighed. "You are quite correct about that point, Commander Haight-Ashbury. My apologies to you. Still, could you PLEASE do something to make your points a little more clearer to us 'old fogies'?"

Long Beach laughed as Kongō giggled and some of the other shipgirls in the room smirked. "Sure, man! I'll try to keep it in mind!" She sighed. "You sure you want to do this, Little Buck?" she asked Fubuki. "Look what happened to Sonia when she got that kiss a couple days ago from Keiko. You'll be out of the game for a time if you wind up shipping missiles or a helo. You can ask Gold Beaver how it was like when she was turned into a DDGH after she tripped into Cornwallis..."

She waved to the red-haired C-class destroyer who became the first to bear the name of her adopted nation's capital city and the river that formed its northern border. Staring intently at Fubuki — Canadian destroyers who visited Yokosuka often teased the first of her class by using the "sempai" title with her, which embarrassed the adopted native of Maizuru to no end — Ottawa took a deep breath. "Dimension-wise, Fujiko is almost the same as my Saint Laurent-class namesake, so shipping a helicopter shouldn't be difficult. Her displacement will go up quite a bit because she'll need fuel bulges to keep her stable once the new equipment gets on board." As Fubuki nodded, the destroyer which had been once commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS _Crusader_ added, "Getting missile launchers would be alright if we shove the superstructure aft and trunk the funnels. You might wind up with a CODAG drive system in this 'upgrade', so you may not even have need for two funnels. Lieutenant Owings adapted to the change of drive systems quite easily, as did Captain Itō after she got re-engined at Nanisivik." As eyes briefly locked on Yonaga and Arizona, the flagship of the Sixth Canadian Destroyer Squadron slowly nodded. "How many times do you need to get readings to get a permanent lock on this maniac, Cass?" she asked Long Beach. "If we're damned lucky and he's not moving to keep ducking people trying to track him down and put him in gaol?"

The cruiser hummed. "Few times. Say from different points in the country?"

"It's the wisest thing to do," Enterprise affirmed from beside Yamato.

"Terrible as it sounds, it may be our only choice," Musashi hissed out.

"I still don't like this!" Nagato warned.

"It's only just a kiss, Reiko-san," Ōyodo protested.

"What about the girls being forced to bond with any of us?!" Saratoga countered. "They have the right of free choice! It was denied to Miss Matsuhara, Miss Yanagi and Miss Karasuma. Possibly Miss Hyūji as well!"

"What if Murata-hakase is monitoring all this?!" Haruna warned from beside Kongō. "If he knows that we're trying to track him down, he could fade out, just as Cass warned. This will never end until all those poor girls are enslaved!"

Cries came out from others before a new voice then cut in, "Maybe we can do a test first."

Eyes immediately locked on the third of the Kuma-class light cruisers. "Go on, Kiko-san," Gotō then bade.

The raven-haired torpedo cruiser shrugged. "Sonia-san, your upgrade was fully powered by the mesonium in Keiko-sensei's blood, right?" As Arizona nodded, Kitakami gazed on the two Italian cruisers. "You as well?" As Zara and Pola nodded, she smiled. "Then let me see if Konatsu-vayae is able to upgrade me. Given that she does see me as her marei'cha now..."

"Kiko-san!" Ōi hissed out. "It might hurt her...!"

"We need to find out if we can truly be compatible, Ōitchi."

That made the brown-haired torpedo cruiser blink before she sighed. "True..."

"You can also do that as well, Mutsuko," Yonaga stated as she gazed on Musashi.

The ash-haired battleship nodded. "Hai, Onē-sama, that's true..."

"We should get Negako-sensei to monitor all of this," Hatsuyuki warned.

"Naturally," Gotō agreed.

Long Beach blinked, then she shrugged. "The Earth Child's coming with A-man and his main squeeze now."

Everyone stared at her, then Fubuki gaped. "There's Roberta-sempai and Ataru-san, too! And Taeko-san and Kanami-san!"

Jaws dropped. "Right...!" Kongō trilled out...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Ferch (name)** — Literally "daughter of (name)", the Welsh patronymic honorific for women; **Tokubetsu Kōgeki-tai** — Literally "special attack units", this was the catch-all term for all personnel who participated in suicide missions in defence of Japan during the latter years of World War Two; **Ap (name)** — Literally "son of (name)", the Welsh patronymic honorific for men; **Kaichō** — In the case shown here, this is short for **Seito Kaichō** (literally "student chairman"), the head of a student council body at a school; **Il Fantasma Grigio** — The Grey Ghost; **Per favore non farmi del male** — Please don't hurt me; **Per favore, per favore non affondarmi** — Please, please don't sink me; **Benedetta Maria** — Blessed (Virgin) Mary; **Maestro** — Master; **Vongola Decimo** — Tenth of the Vongola (AKA **Sawada Tsunayoshi** from _Katekyō Hitman Reborn_ ); **La Pazza** — The Crazy Woman; **CAGH** — American hull classification symbol for a helicopter-carrying, guided missile heavy cruiser (which was never used in real life); **BBGH** — American hull classification symbol for a helicopter-carrying, guided missile battleship (again, never used in real life); **SYLVER** — Acronym for **Système de Lancement Vertical** ("vertical launch system"), the French-developed version of the Mark 41 VLS used on American warships; **MFRA** — Multi-Functional Radar, Active; **Befreiungskriege** — Plural of **Befreiungskrieg** ("War of Liberation"); **Irori** — Traditional Japanese sunken hearth fire pit, used to heat a house; **Minka** — Literally "house of the people", this is a term used to describe various forms of traditional Japanese houses; **Kommodore** — Commodore; **Acht Kommandanten** — Eight (Imperial Magical) Commanderies (of Japan); **Oberst** — Colonel; **So soll es sein** — So mote it be; **Generalleutnant** — Lieutenant General (spoken of in Spanish as **Teniente General** ); **Brigadegeneral** — Brigadier General; **Flecktarn** — Mottled camouflage; **Le Ministère de la Magie** — The Ministry of Magic; **Teniente Coronel** — Lieutenant Colonel; **Academia de Magia de Tarraco** — Tarraco Academy of Magic; **Discúlpame, por favor** — Excuse me, please; **Corvette** — Plural of **corvetta** ("corvette"); **Fregate** — Plural of **fregata** ("frigate"); **Sesto Squadrone** — Sixth Squadron; **DDGH** — American hull classification symbol for a helicopter-carrying, guided missile destroyer (again, never used in real life); **CODAG** — Literally "combined diesel and gas (turbine)", this is a mixed propulsion system for warships which uses diesel engines for cruising and gas turbines for fast movement.

The poem Abraham Lincoln refers to was written by Lieutenant **Wilfred Owen, MC** (1893-1918), a native of Shropshire in England who fought as a member of the 2nd Battalion of the **Manchester Regiment** (today part of the **Duke of Lancaster's Regiment [King's, Lancashire and Border]** ), who died not a week before the end of the Great War. I first learned of the concept of the "Old Lie" as quoted in Owen's poem _**Dulce et Decorum est...**_ ("It is Sweet and Honourable...") from one of my favourite books, the late Farley Mowat's _**And No Birds Sang**_ (published 1979); the poem was quoted of in the preface.

For those who don't know, **Renato Sinclair** is the birth name of **Reborn** (from _KHR_ ).

The **Order of Sigurd** is Norway's version of the Order of Merlin in my stories. It's divided into three levels as other magical-only awards are, rated (from lowest tier to highest tier) as **Knight** , **Officer** and **Grand Officer**.

Shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **ITALY  
**_ **MM Zara** — Zita de Lerici  
 **MM Pola** — Paola de Lerici


	25. Fubuki Does Her Best For Kisses?

**_DISCLAIMER:_** ** _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_** **Copyright Act** ** _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District Headquarters, Thursday 25 May, two hours after supper...**_

"Fujiko-chan, are you SURE you want to do something like this?!"

Hearing that pained plea from the converted battlecruiser she had always admired, the lead of her class of destroyers took a deep breath. "It has to be done, Anna-sempai!" Fubuki then calmly stated, crossing her arms. Everyone had returned to the main conference room to discuss what was being planned now, with the shipgirls having enjoyed one of the best meals that could be made by the culinary staff. "Hai, I realize that given what happened to those poor girls like your sisters' lovers, there is the chance I could be raped." As many of the shipgirls in the room blanched on hearing that blunt observation escape the first true modern destroyer, the brown-haired adopted native of Maizuru added, "But when I was summoned back, I took an oath to ensure all the people who couldn't fight the enemy would be able to live their lives in peace and harmony. The girls of Saint Maria Christos were DENIED that...and supposedly, all for US! I can't let that stain on our honour remain!"

"Spoken like a true samurai, Fujiko-san."

Eyes locked on Yonaga, then Akagi groaned. "Yoiko! Don't encourage her!"

"Yoiko-san is right, Anna-san. What happened to those girls was 'meant' for all of us, so we have to do something to aid them. Yes, the healers of the Tōmagun and 'W' Commando are trying their best, but putting them so close to us..."

Eyes locked on the brown-haired, caramel-eyed pre-dreadnought battleship that had been summoned by Harry Potter and Ono Natsume three years ago when an Abyssal attack penetrated into the inner part of Tōkyō Bay. "Are you thinking we should move those kids somewhere where there aren't shipgirls present, Captain Tōgō?" Gotō Kiichi then asked the flagship of the Combined Fleet at Tsu-shima. "It was noticed right away by Alexander-sensei that these girls needed to be close to shipgirls given what happened to them when they were at school; that explains why they were so dull and lifeless in the period after Arisugawa-san and Hirato-san moved them from their school to Nerima. Yes, it runs the risk of incidents like what nearly happened to Yū-chan and what just happened to Zita-san and Paola-san, but to take them away now..."

"I wish I realized that earlier on after I got them moved to Nerima."

Mikasa looked over at the girl with the tapered ears in the surplus army pants and T-shirt now standing by one window gazing out at the lower reaches of Tōkyō Bay. "Stop that, child," the adopted native of Nara (her namesake mountain), Kagoshima (her beloved admiral's home town) and Barrow-in-Furness (the place she was built) bade as she walked over to squeeze Arisugawa Yui's shoulders, making the former cultural observer shudder. "You did what you thought was best. Yes, there were mistakes, but you're no trained healer. You saved them from a potential threat — multiple potential threats, in fact — and kept them alive until you could safely approach all of us to get help. You completed the mission admirably, little admiral..."

"Shipmistress-prime."

People perked. "That would be the Sagussan term for an admiral," Kaga then concluded.

"Hai, Kei-san," Yui said.

"So when you've spoken to sisters in the Dreamscape, you've been talking to people in the Main Dockyard, right?"

That was Hirato Yūko, who was giving her old schoolmate a knowing look. "What main dockyard?" Enterprise asked as many there exchanged confused looks before they focused on the bespectacled woman who helped Yui rescue her friends.

"When the Avalonians got busted out of jail, Kasuga Ayumu and Suzumiya Haruhi found an abandoned Fourth Sagussan Republic fleet of starships in orbit over a dead planet close to one of the homeworlds of one of the Urusians' allies in the Galactic Federation," Yūko declared as slight smiles crossed the faces of Gotō and his counterparts in Sasebo and Taranto, John Richardson and Jacobella Bergamini; even if THAT project had remained above top secret from any shipgirl for the last six months, they knew their subordinates would love to hear of what was now being planned. "Along with that was a massive factory satellite that once served as the main dockyard and construction yard for their defence forces; it had been moved there when the people rebelling against the jerks who liked the idea of chopping up clones of people for spare body-parts decided to deny the bastards any space attack capabilities." As people winced on hearing that curt statement from the banker's daughter — the story of planet Sagussa thirteen millennia ago often sounded close to what had been written about planet Krypton in a miniseries by the man who had helped revamp the whole story of Superman in the late 1980s after the (in)famous _Crisis of Infinite Earths_ maxi-series — the former member of Class 1-W at "M.C. High" then added, "Fortunately in all this time since that war ended, the factory stayed in perfect shape; self-repair 'droids inside it kept it going strong all these years. To make sure it couldn't be stolen by anyone, the Avalonians had it brought over and parked it on Mars' orbit at the third Lagrange point between it and the Sun. Once the Academician put an updated cloaking device around it and whatever ships the Avalonians parked here, there was no way that the aliens that were being allowed to visit Earth at the time could see it."

"That's where these starship versions of ourselves are being built," Yonaga noted.

Gotō tensed. "Yoiko-san, how...?" He then stopped himself, chuckling. "Right. Patricia-sensei and her friends told you."

"Indeed they did, Teitoku," the seventh carrier of Operation Z declared.

"Your mother's people are willing to do that for us, Yui-san?!" Fubuki asked.

Yui gazed at her. "We all watched you go out there and fight these things, Fujiko-chan," she said as she walked over to gently place her hands on the destroyer's cheeks, making the adopted native of Maizuru blush. "Even if our masters were under direct orders to not do anything to interfere in your fight against those things, we all felt your pain. We felt it when Mutsuko-chan lost Kyōko-chan." She gazed on Mutsuki and Kisaragi, both of whom blushed at that show of caring from the adopted native of Nagoya. "We felt it when Sumiko-san lost Shōko-san." Here, she looked at one of the monitor screens, displaying an image of Zuihō and Shōhō in their new quarters at Sasebo. "We felt it every time you were hurt and nearly killed all over the world. We WANTED to help you guys! Screw the Non-Interference Treaty! If the leaders of the Federation were ready to toss it all aside to prevent the Ipraedies from invading Earth, then they needed to learn what was really going on here!"

"Why didn't they, Yui-chan?" Haruna asked from beside Kongō.

"It's because Ōgi didn't want them to learn it, Harumi-san."

Eyes locked on the image of Moroboshi Ataru, who was now travelling on a Shinkan-sen train with Roma from Sasebo via Hakata in Fukuoka to Shin-Yokohama, where they would transfer to a local line to come to Yokosuka. "Shit! Let me guess!" New Jersey snarled from Richardson's office in Sasebo, crossing her arms. "Ataru's 'wife' would get into some shit because of the Abyssals — or us — then he'd sweep in to save the day, plus save her from the 'great evil', right?"

"On the nose, Kathy-san," Ataru affirmed.

"Please tell me you KILLED this monster," Yonaga snarled.

"No, Yoiko-san. I did much worse." Ataru sat back in his chair; Gotō knew that the last host of the Earth Angel would have secured himself in a private "green" cabin so he and Roma could enjoy time alone as they travelled. "When we hit the Phentax system to liberate the Avalonians, I asked Ayumu-chan to yank him out of his office in Lumukyō and have him teleported to the flagship of Nassur-san's father Ninsur-gensui, who was then in orbit over Vos so he could be tried for that bio-war attack on Lecashuto six years ago." As people gaped in horror at him, he shrugged. "He said he wanted to target the Mikado — he's Vos' current dictator — for trying to kill Lum and his family. He wound up killing _**five million innocent people**_ instead. According to Ayumu-chan's friend Mizuhara Yomi-san, Ōgi honestly didn't care for how many died just as long as the Vosians were taught a lesson in humility. Right now, that bastard's rotting away in prison on Vos for the rest of his life."

"So the foolish brat's karma will be destroyed before he sees what awaits him in the next life," Mikasa snarled as many others in the room grimly nodded at such a fate. "Good. A monster like that deserves no less. No matter your own feelings for Lum, Ataru-kun, you have to agree with me that she certainly didn't deserve a mass murdering stalker chasing her all the time."

"I knew that all along, Mihoko-onēsan."

As the pre-dreadnought blushed at being called "big sister" by the last host of the Earth Angel, Yui pulled herself away from Fubuki, then reached into the cargo pouch of her surplus army combat pants to draw out what looked like an iPad. Walking over to the end of the main meeting table, the raven-haired former cultural observer then tapped a point on the slate quartz-like crystal. The shipgirls present all gasped as a beautiful hologram appeared over the screen.

"May I present... **Tennō Heika Uchūkan** _ **Fubuki**_!"

Everyone instantly crowded around the image...

* * *

 _ **The destroyer dorms, nightfall...**_

"Fast...I'll be the fastest thing in the GALAXY...!"

Hearing Shimakaze chant that as she danced around the main common room, the other destroyers all shook their heads. Attending this meeting atop Fubuki and her fleet mates from Yokosuka (save the slowly-recovering Yūdachi, who was listening in over radio from her room) were Shimakaze's sisters from Korea, the six members of the Sixth Canadian Destroyer Squadron as well as the three destroyer members of Taffy Three. Given that all destroyers worldwide belonged to the "Tin Can Mafia", a worldwide information network shared by all of their kind, the news of what Yūko revealed in the main meeting hall would get out to every nation possessing shipgirl destroyers within hours. Already, faerie communication crews within each girl present here was transcribing what had been discussed for immediate data transmission to their friends worldwide. As the first modern destroyer to answer the call to arms as a kantai musume, Fubuki was often seen as the overall "flagship" of the Tin Can Mafia. "You must be pretty excited, Sumie-chan," the first of her class then said to her old classmate.

A slight burst of wind saw the blonde destroyer lean right into her fleet mate's face. "Are you KIDDING me, Fujiko?!" Shimakaze demanded. "Do you realize what Warp 20 MEANS?!" As Fubuki shook her head, the lead member of her class stepped back. "It's twenty to the fifth power! That's 3,200,000 times the speed of LIGHT! Almost a TRILLION kilometres a SECOND!" She leapt back as her three gun turret familiars squealed. "Allen-sensei, MOVE OVER! You got competition!"

Her Korean sisters all cheered their "ŏnni's" delight; as they had been planned as a follow-on group to Shimakaze's design, their starship-selves would have the same general capabilities. "I still don't understand why Yasuko-san didn't seem to like this, nanodesu," Inazuma then commented, which instantly sobered everyone up. "Even if we're powerful, our capabilities now are totally planet-bound. If we can get out into space, we can make the meanies out there go away as well!"

"It's the whole thing with _Star Blazers_ , Inoue," Hoel stated, which made the Japanese destroyers wince; Yamato's disapproval of many aspects of _Uchū Senkan Yamato_ was well-known to many affiliated with the shipgirls, especially when it came to the whole Wave Motion Gun concept. "Even if the Avalonians aren't putting the anti-proton cannons old Sagussan capital ships possessed into them, the weapons our version of a starship _Yamato_ will be equipped with could devastate a _**continent**_. The whole concept of 'weapons of mass destruction' will have to be seriously revised once we get those things into commission." As others winced, the adopted native of Butler County in Ohio shook her head. "Doubt the idiots who organized that shit last year with that whole Tag Race idiocy would like us getting hold of those ships. It was as clear as mud in a ballroom. They're so scared of us, they'll do anything to put us down and keep us suppressed. Look at what that Redet bitch did to Ataru!"

Grunts and nods from the other Americans and Canadians in the room. "Ne, Madelyn-a. It still amazes me that Ataru-ssi actually likes that girl," T'aekp'ung said before she breathed out into the cup ramyŏn she got for herself from a nearby vending machine. The adopted native of P'ohang — all of the Korean Project V6 destroyers were now seen as part of the overall Yŏn'il Sŭng clan, thus considered the industrial town in Kyŏngsangbuk-to their hometown and home port — shook her head. "Why?"

"Ataru-kun's always been very forgiving of those who honestly do care for him, Sŏnghan-a," Fubuki said. As a verbal slap in the face to the militarists who loudly hated the idea of Japanese-designed destroyers serving in the United Korean Republic Navy, most Japanese shipgirls — Aso being the most well-known exception — always used Korean honorifics with their would-be fleet mates. "Despite the original lie and her being so overbearing at times, Lum-san did care for him. He always saw her as his only true friend in that town. Shinobu-san effectively dropped him when Shūtarō-san joined their class and Chigaiko-san was just too scared to press her own desires for him after that curse hit her that made everyone forget her name."

Nods all around. "So what do you plan to do now with your 'girlfriend', Fujiko?" Gatineau then cooed, making her squadron-mates all gaze knowingly at the first modern destroyer. As Fujiko squawked, the adopted native of her namesake city in Québec across from Ottawa sat back in her chair. "You have to admit, volunteering for a 'kiss upgrade' via those poor girls our Forester friends are watching over now on the island was quite bold, especially for someone like you."

"You could get into trouble, Onē-chan," Hatsuyuki warned. "Look what Kagurazaka-sensei was prepared to do to Yū-chan."

Others winced. While there was a definite sort of mistrust between destroyer and submarine shipgirls — given that the former type of warship was made to hunt the latter during the world wars, while the crews of the latter type considered all surface ships legitimate targets to be sunk if the mission called for it — the idea of someone as nice and as professional as the former German U-boat known officially as Ro-500 being RAPED by a woman who was well into her late twenties would make any sensible person cringe. "It's only just a kiss, Hatsue-chan," Fubuki said as she waved her sister down. "Zita-sempai and Paola-sempai reported that once the upgrade was underway, Rei-san and Akira-san were allowed to regain control over themselves. With what the healers are saying now, both of them are recovering like Keiko-sensei and her friends down in Sasebo did after Jane-sensei and Patricia-sensei moved to help them recover from upgrading Sonia-sempai and the others."

"Did Yoiko-sempai get a kiss from the girl who went after her?" Ikazuchi asked.

"No, she hasn't, Ikue-chan!" Akatsuki declared. "An elephant lady..."

"' _ **ELEGANT!**_ '" everyone else screamed at her.

The first of her class of destroyers winced...

* * *

 _ **The carrier dorms, that moment...**_

"AH-CHOO!"

"Bless you, Onē-sama! Are you alright?!"

Yonaga moaned before she wiped her nose. "I'm fine, Yasuko. Young Tsukiko was speaking of me as an 'elegant lady' again."

Laughter filled the room from the others attending this mass meeting of carriers and battleships — along with one certain missile cruiser — in the main lounge of the carrier dorms. "She does mean well, Yoiko," Kaga noted. "Though she needs to learn her English better. 'Elephant lady'? That's an insult to someone like yourself, old friend." As the others in the room laughed again, the converted battleship sighed. "Fujiko-chan seemed very eager to volunteer, didn't she?"

"That's the thing I've dreaded for years now!" Nagato hissed out. "Even if their crews were almost all men at the cusp of adulthood — thus more than happy to enjoy such intimacy — the destroyers are only NOW going into puberty...!"

Saratoga squeezed her lover's shoulder to stave off another embarrassing Nagamon episode. "Nonetheless, Fujiko-chan was right, Reiko-san," Yamato noted. She had always been very sympathetic to the first modern destroyer given how much Fubuki was willing to help the first Japanese super-battleship get chances to deploy as witness what happened in the prelude to Operation MI. "What happened to those girls is a stain on our honour, our combined karma. Naomi-chan needs the chance to detect where this yakuza is so Onē-sama can get the vengeance our guests on the island deserve for all the things they've gone through. If Fujiko-chan is willing to help out — and it can be done in controlled circumstances — let it be done!"

"Before we even think of doing that, let's ask people who actually HAVE become 'special boatswain mates' this way about their own opinions," Enterprise proposed, which made people gaze at one of the view screens projecting an image from Sasebo.

Tosa and Akagi's battlecruiser sisters gazed upon their lovers; they now sat together in an old classroom at Kōkai Junior High School. "It was okay, Yvonne-san," Tōgasa's lover Horiguchi Junko stated. "Yes, I was forced into this mess by Murata-hakase. I never had a 'choice' in choosing who would be my life-mate because of what he did. But I gave Tokiko the chance the be human and break away from Satan's grasp. God was the one who brought Tokiko into my heart. His Will be done."

"I can only agree to that," Matsuhara Keiko added; she was now seated beside Arizona in the lounge, having come with her new girlfriend to the general meeting at Yokosuka thanks to phoenix travel as arranged by Long Beach. "Yes, I was forced into this mess...but a more kind and noble person I could never ask for as a wife." She smiled as the younger of the Pennsylvania-class battleships turned an interesting shade of red. As others laughed, the nurse shrugged. "She has her imperfections and eats too many doughnuts to be healthy, but her kisses are simply divine and her hull is so WARM!" The raven-haired nurse then snuggled up against the martyr of Pearl Harbour, making Arizona squawk in shame-faced embarrassment.

"Hey! Free love! Seriously cool!" Long Beach chanted from her place by the main doors, she leaning against the wall.

" _ **NAOMI!**_ " Arizona shrieked. " _ **DON'T ENCOURAGE THINGS, YOU SILLY GIRL!**_ "

Laughter filled the room; seeing the quite prudish standard battleship so publicly flustered like this was always worth its weight in gold. "Still, I don't like this," New Jersey then commented from John Richardson's office. She and Iowa had been joined by Mutsu, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Mississippi while the commander of American naval forces in Japan was dealing with an issue Prinz Eugen reported to him just as this particular private meeting of capital ships began.

"Oh, finally! She learns proper behaviour!" Arizona snapped.

"HEY!" the second of the Iowa-class snarled.

"No one should ever like this, Kathy," Mutsu said as she moved to moderate. "Still, it doesn't surprise me that Fujiko-chan was willing to volunteer. She's always been the eager beaver. No insult to our Canadian friends, of course."

Laughter filled the air. "I will not stand by and allow Fujiko-san's honour to be tainted because she showed proper determination in the face of this damned stain on our collective karma," Yonaga coldly declared. "She seems wise enough to understand when to stop this before it gets too far and her innocence is truly destroyed in that manner. Given what happened to Sonia-san, our returned fleet mates and our guests from Italy, whoever is so honoured to become Fujiko-san's special boatswain's mate should recover quickly. When they are in a 'normal' state of mind, the ladies of Saint Maria Christos are well-behaved, honouring their upbringing; even an 'eccentric' such as Yūko-san knows the proper conventions and adheres to them when not alone with Chiyo-san." As the others laughed on hearing that — to see a straight-laced woman like Chōkai bed someone like Hirato Yūko had surprised many — Yonaga added, "The healers know the potions regime that Patricia-san came up with to help Keiko-sensei fully recover herself. Sawako-sensei, Junko-sensei, Haruka-sensei and Michiko-sensei were able to recover once they gave our returned fleet mates such 'upgrade kisses'. Junko-san here is preparing the necessary potions for Rei-san and Akira-san. Once we make necessary preparations, the operation should proceed ahead with no issues."

"That's cold, Yoiko-san," Nagato muttered.

The carrier's eyes narrowed. "Reiko-san, all the victims of Unit 731 scream for vengeance!" she icily declared. "This yakuza made use of studies his grandfather and his co-workers in that unit carried out during the Greater East Asia War to press on the Black Dragon Society's insane moves to win the metahuman war against our returned friends from North America and Raeburn-shihan's fighting troop. As long as he is free and able to hurt others, they will never be appeased."

"Agreed," Musashi noted.

Grim nods from many of the others in the room. "Even in death, they deserve proper justice, Commander Yamamoto," Mississippi breathed out, shaking her head. "Young Junko has the rights of it. No matter how it happened, it's God Will."

"His Will be done," Tennessee lamented.

A hum then escaped the second of the Yamato-class to become an aircraft carrier. "What is it, Shizuka-chan?" Yamato asked.

Shinano squawked, then she blushed. "It's nothing, Onē-san...!"

"Having ill-designs for young Harry, Shizuka?" Yonaga wondered, a knowing look crossing her face.

Three...

Two...

One...

Blast-off!

" _ **SHIZUKA-SAN! HOW**_ **DARE** _ **YOU EVEN CONTEMPLATE SUCH THINGS ABOUT**_ **MY** _ **SON?!**_ "

As Shinano wailed while a huge demon head-like formed from Nagato, Yonaga and Long Beach shared a knowing look...

* * *

 _ **United States Fleet Activities Sasebo, that moment...**_

"Jesus H. Christ! Are these idiots SERIOUS?!"

"Very much so, mein Admiral," Prinz Eugen said as she tried not to shiver too much at the idea of some fool coming along and attacking the members of the Black Maidens — especially her own adopted countrywoman Anna Wittmann — for something they had been completely exonerated from years ago. Given the sheer stupidity of the whole situation and her outrage at such, her native German was slipping into her normally perfect speech. "Fortunately, from what Oberst Graves told me before I came here to relay this from Oberstleutnante Wittmann, enforcement of these sorts of decrees is always a local affair; the Confederation has no independent enforcement wing that could teleport into a nation to carry out this type of arrest warrant. Since the Eight Commanderies would automatically refuse to support this given the decree issued by Seine Kaiserliche Majestät, this is a hollow threat as long as the Erstes Bataillon remains in Japan. But if they try to return to Europe..."

"There are still people there who wish vengeance on Anna-san and her friends for what they did during the Wars of Liberation, John-san," Professor Hata Kayoko then warned. The headmistress of the Dejima School of Wizardry and Witchcraft and the leader of the Kyūshū Magical Association had apparated over from Nagasaki as soon as she got a copy of the decree from the International Confederation of Wizards from Percival Graves before he went to confront Anna Wittmann at the Chiiori House. "You'll note people representing nations who voted in support of the Treaty of Reconciliation signed on to this madness once it was brought up in the chambers in Geneva, most likely in a closed session of Akingbade's allies. Which defies their oaths to serve their nations well, including respecting all magical decrees issued by their heads of state. The Treaty of Reconciliation was adopted because of those decrees, especially in nations whose representatives to the Confederation voted against its clauses concerning the Schwarze Mädchen being exonerated for what they were made to do because of their oath to Hitler."

John Richardson groaned. "Oh, fucking hell...!" He then gazed on the lone Marine in the room. "Would the people in the Magical Congress go along with this, Master Guns?" he asked Thomas Beckett. "We did have one American in that brigade..."

"Almost all the people Sergeant Major Mitchell went after before she was evacuated to Europe were stalebloods who wanted to basically make American magical society a mirror of what had existed in Europe over the centuries, Admiral," the Chicagoan veteran of the War of Liberation answered. "Most of them were killed off in 1942 when the Übermenschen attacked Manhattan. Those that survived had to keep their heads down WAY low as the reformists got in there in the wake of MEO 9010. The whole thing about pardoning Sergeant Major Mitchell's actions before the war was seen as done when President Truman passed his MEOs accepting all the clauses of the Treaty of Reconciliation. 'Regina's Revenge', it was called in the papers back then." He sighed. "Sure, the stalebloods who want to reimpose Rappaport's Law as it was done between the Panic of '14 and the Übermenschen attack in '42 have been gaining some ground in recent years in the Congress, especially with the Abyssal issue hanging over us. But most people these days view Sergeant Major Mitchell as a heroine for standing up for no-maj-born rights back then." He shook his head. "Both General O'Brien and General Bean would never go along with this. Since all security matters were turned over to them after Colonel Quahog declared a state of war against the Abyssals and we were mobilized, the DMLE would have no reason to go after Sergeant Major Mitchell if she ever goes back Stateside."

"Even after the war?" the Virginian asked.

"Even after, sir. Besides, thanks to the Post-9010 Generation who came out of Ilvermorny after the war, most American magicals really don't care about European attitudes, especially if they stem from Britain."

Richardson blinked. "Why is that?"

"Because Britain wasn't occupied as other nations were, John-san," Hata answered. "They never suffered the destruction that the Magische Reichsarmee unleashed wherever they marched. Yes, there were raids on the country to keep the magicals there off-balance, plus the raid on their ministry to engineer the loss of their magical colonies as done by Elizabeth-chan and her friends in 1942. But they weren't cowed like the the rest of the Continent was by the time the war turned fully against Gellert-sensei and Svetlána-sensei's people began sweeping in from the east, followed by Molly-sensei's people coming in from the west. As the whole mess with that Riddle fool proved, people on that island never really learned the lessons of that war. Albus-sensei has tried his best to push reforms through, but he's been fought back every step of the way."

"Again, the thing with the Abyssals just scared them too much," Beckett added.

Richardson nodded. Being a Virginian who had been taught the torturous history of the Old Dominion when he had been in school, he understood well how conservative political thought could twist public discourse around at the drop of a dime. He himself had no care at all about such idiot attitudes; he was engaged to marry a very beautiful adopted native of Hiraizumi in Iwate, never mind her being a SHIPGIRL of all things. But he knew there were enough Americans on the normal side of the magical security divide that wanted to see Jim Crow brought back and descendants of Africa put down back into their "place". Given what he had heard from his own superior officer at Kitsap concerning the fiancée of the namesake of the Evergreen State, racism was alive and well on the magical side. "Well, this ought to make things interesting for Harry when he comes of age to go to university. It's a good thing Headmaster Dumbledore has allowed his students to learn normal subjects as well in self-study periods. Harry won't be stunted once it comes time to go to the National Defence University for his commission."

"If the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth doesn't steal him first, sir," Beckett warned.

Hata laughed. "Oh, the screams will be wonderful!"

Richardson looked at her. "What does that mean, Major?"

The former staff officer of the Greater East Asia Liberation Army's Third Brigade smirked as she sat back in her chair. "Neither you nor Kiichi-san fully realize this, John-san, but the fact that young Harry has been raised here in Japan away from the influence of the 'learned leaders' of Britain still has people in that country screaming for his permanent return. This latest episode concerning that two-faced liar Umbridge was just one sign of it. Even if Harry has won the sympathies of his fellow magical lords, his remaining here in Japan will be a contentious issue, especially if Tennō decides to remind people that we're legally not bound to the Confederation. Hai, the truth of what happened to Riddle is getting out, but he's still their 'darling'..."

"What could be done to break that? He IS effectively my nephew, Professor..."

Hata nodded. "Hai, I understand." She then hummed. "I'll have to think about it. The simple solution would be to ask Heather-san to take him on as an apprentice. Given that her own fame is quite widespread..."

"Admiral Thompkins?" Beckett asked.

"Hai, Thomas-san. Remember, she never attended the Institute of Sorcery and Magic; she learned her magic all on her own with her parents' sterling help in the 1930s given that her mother was a third-generation nimmib. Heather-san also did do much to rebuild the credibility of the Confederation after the war, which earned her admirers from all sides. Hai, there are those who don't care for her because of her affiliation with Raeburn-shihan and her friendship with the Soul-Eater..."

"Master Guns, could you get a letter out to the admiral for me?"

Eyes locked on Richardson. "Aye, sir, easily enough," Beckett vowed.

"Good. I'll write something to her about this issue to pique her interest. In the meantime, Commander von Savoyen, keep an eye on Colonel Wittmann and her command. Do whatever is necessary to make sure if some moron tries something stupid..."

The lone shipgirl present nodded. "Jawohl, mein Admiral!"

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Hamachaya near Café Mamiya by the main gate of the Naval District, an hour later...**_

"Oi! Why are you guys so down?!"

Yamato perked on hearing that concerned question from Fujinami Ryūnosuke, then she blushed. She was currently seated at one table of the newly-opened tea shop with her fiancée and several others, including Yonaga, Arizona and the standard battleship's current girlfriend. "Sumimasen, Ryūnosuke-san. We just learned of several things that rather overwhelmed us." She then gazed on Yonaga. "You were wise to keep these things secret from us, Onē-sama." A scolding look then crossed her face, even if her lips quirked into a smile. "But why on Earth did you do that to poor Shizuka-chan?! Hai, she cares for Harry-chan a lot, like the others who've been very close to him since Reiko-san saved him from those horrible relatives of his..."

"It was both for Shizuka's and Reiko's benefit, Yasuko," the seventh carrier said as Inu Chigaiko came over with some tea for her, Arizona and Keiko; Ryūnosuke's old classmate — along with the other girl who had fled Tomobiki High School to make a life for themselves away from the madness that had haunted them all over the last year, Tsuruya Rumiko — had volunteered to help out at the Hamachaya during evening hours. "Reiko needs to seriously curb those 'Nagamon' tendencies of hers. I've heard of the times young escorts have been nearly traumatized by her losing control like that." As others nodded — indeed, because of Nagato's erratic behaviour when confronting something insanely cute, Canadian escort ships visiting Japan often preferred to stay in Sasebo or at Eta-jima when they moved to recover before returning home — the carrier added, "Much that I understand Shizuka's debt when it comes to how young Harry helped her become a proper fleet carrier, she must learn to not take too many liberties. Do not think that my support of Fujiko-san's plan to seek out a special boatswain's mate blinded me to her level of emotional maturity. By her calling Anna here 'sempai' all the time, even now..." Here, she gave Akagi a knowing look, earning her a giggle from the converted battlecruiser and knowing smirks from the other fleet carriers of the Kidō Butai.

"Still, Fujiko-san's exuberance is always a good thing," Kaga noted before she sipped her own tea. "It's been inspiring to all of us. She has done much to improve herself since she was summoned, especially after she came down from Maizuru to be formally trained. 'I will always do my best'," she then quoted the first modern destroyer. "Hai, she's scared of what could happen if things get completely out of control, but her sense of honour and fairness will drive her through."

"It's a pity her soon-to-be girlfriend could be then seen as 'enslaved' to her," Rumiko noted, gaining nods from the others in the café. "No offence to you, Sensei, but having your own choice of future wife stolen from you like that..."

Keiko smiled. "Arigatō, Rumiko-chan. Don't worry about me. If Naomi-sama is as wise as she seems at times despite her weird language, I'm sure the one who wins Fujiko-chan's heart will be the right sort of girl for her." She then hummed. "At the same time, we have to remember Mutsuko-chan, Kodachi-chan and even Kyōko-chan. Given how close all of them are, especially given what happened to Kyōko-chan, it wouldn't be fair to upgrade Fujiko-chan's systems and not the others."

"Shit! That will start a massive tidal wave if you're not careful," Ryūnosuke warned. "The other destroyers would want to be in on that the instant those girls get upgraded. If the oceans aren't cooled down enough when they do that..."

"The enemy might see it as a chance to strike," Sōryū finished.

Grim nods all around. "The real threat is the Ogasawara Islands and that one oni there," Yonaga then declared. "Sonia-san, do you feel ready to make use of those Harpoons you now can fire from your canister launchers?"

Arizona perked before she nodded. "The systems seem simple enough to operate, Yoiko. I've been receiving transmitted instructions on their use from Darlene. I would still like to get the chance to work myself up properly."

The carrier nodded. "Do so as quickly as possible. From what I've sensed, that particular installation has done nothing to earn any respect from any of her peers, so she's all alone. The one down in the Kazan Islands can be left alone for the time being. Let her consider either pressing a campaign or coming to terms with us as Wanko-san did. All that's vital in that sector is what's left of Mahōtokoro. That school was shut down in 1930 by Yomigawa-gensui to concentrate all wand magical training at Dejima, plus remove all local resistance and any influence from the International Confederation to her plans to restore traditional magical training to the remainder of Asia." She then perked before she gazed to the west, her ears twitching.

The others sensed her shift of mood. "What is it, Onē-sama?" Musashi asked.

Yonaga blinked, then she smirked. "The Soul-Eater appears to be having something of a feast at this time, Mutsuko."

People perked. "General Dover?" Enterprise asked.

"Who's General Dover?" Yorktown asked from beside Haruna and Rose Potter.

The others stared at the first of her class before Kaga sighed. "Remember, she was lost at Midway, everyone." As the others blushed on remembering that Yorktown recovered her memories thanks to Sundown and one of the would-be Obscurials of Nakanotori-shima just days before, the converted battleship gazed at her old opponent. "Jessica Dover is a metahuman whose soul is bound to a zhar-ptýtsja, a Slavic version of a phoenix, Ellie-san. This being was transformed into a literal consumer of evil souls by the Undying Lord. It was trapped by Master Koschéj in a mesonium crystal, then passed down over the years to be taken to Canada by Dover-shōshō's mother. Thanks to all that mesonium in the Canadian Shield, Dover-shōshō was able to bond with that thing in the mid-1930s, then began hunting killers and rapists in her home province until she came to the attention of the Ministry of Magical Affairs after an Obscurial tried to attack a magical enclave near Winnipeg. After the war began, she joined the RCAF Women's Division, then fell under the command of Raeburn-shihan in her special unit to fight the Übermenschen, the War Hawks. You might remember news of the first engagements just after we attacked Pearl Harbour."

Yorktown blinked, then she nodded. "Ah! Right! That girl who chased away those valkyries that one of Hitler's idiots called down to press that first attack on Washington back in April of '42, right?" As the others nodded, the raven-haired carrier shook her head. "Yeah, my crew thought that was just awesome! Especially that guy who had that M1 who picked off some of those flyers from over a mile away! No one knew a Garand could shoot that damned far! Who was he?!"

"Here, Lieutenant."

A book was placed down before the carrier, it showing a beautiful painting of four of the most famous yet mysterious Canadians ever to live, such over the title _**The War Hawks: The Unofficial History of Canada's First "Mystery Men"**_. Blinking, Yorktown looked right and up to see a blonde carrier in the pearl grey skinsuit of the Royal Canadian Navy standing beside her table, the pendant **R31** on her upper thighs. As she was now ashore, the seventh of the Colossus-class carriers had on a black naval combat jacket, her pay rank of captain (navy) on her shoulders and her wavy blonde hair — done now in a proper bun — was under a black beret with the Naval Operations Branch anchor-and-wreath of maple leaves hat badge. Up close, people were quick to note the slight Latin tan to her skin and the olive eyes that marked Warrior's years of service in the Armada de la República Argentina as ARA _Independencia_. "Um...th-thanks, Captain," Yorktown said with a nod.

"Ara! Freida-san! Are you here for karaoke?" Hiryū teased.

Warrior chuckled as she moved to sit beside her old trainers. "A little spot of evening tea before we raid Mister Hasegawa's delightful parlour, Hiyoko," the adopted native of Belfast (her place of construction) and Edmonton (through her namesake corps in the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets) said as Ryūnosuke came to take her order. After a cup of Earl Grey was requested, the flagship of the Canadian Pacific Fleet smiled, winking. "Are you forcing your old fleet mate there at sword-point?"

"We're not sure if she can do karaoke, Freida-chan," Zuikaku said before she gazed on Yonaga. "Oi, Yoiko! You ever go visit a karaoke bar after you got turned into a kanmusu with Patricia-san and her friends? The way you sang _Winged Hussars_ at Sasebo after you reported there shows you can carry a tune. Makes me wonder if Nahoko-chan won't get jealous of you!"

"It did go viral on YouTube, Captain," Warrior warned.

Yonaga blinked. "I have _**fans**_...?!"

Jaws dropped. "And she learns this NOW?!" Enterprise asked.

People gaped before laughter filled the room...

...then running footfalls from outside made people perk, then turn just as a panting destroyer ran in, nearly keeling over after sprinting here at flank. "S-s-Sempai-t-tachi..." Mutsuki sputtered. "Ataru-kun...R-r-Roberta-semp-pai...!"

Everyone quickly scrambled out to see what was happening...

* * *

 _ **On the playing field of the Naval District...**_

"Chaos...!"

Moroboshi Negako didn't react as the dapper-dressed twenty-something man with the stylish black hair and the dark eyes of a hunter came up to stand beside her. "At least your vocal chords have recovered from the removal of that curse, Renato," the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu noted as she gazed upon the World's Greatest Hitman, who was dressed in his normal black business suit with dark gold shirt, black tie and gold-trimmed black fedora hat. "How goes Tsunayoshi's training?"

"He's got quite the family assembled around him now," Reborn stated as he gazed at the incredible light show in the middle of the field. As a massive crowd of shipgirls and normal personnel streamed out of the dorms to see what was going on, he shook his head. "Damn! Roberta's going full active on her Flames! Was Ataru trying to keep it held back ever since Daniela warned him that most of the old Regia Marina veterans might have the ability to tap Dying Will Flames?"

"I gave him the initial warnings when he first travelled to Taranto and Tariko sensed the number of metahuman mafiosi in the area," Negako explained as footsteps heralded the arrival of the crowd from the Hamachaya, not to mention a platoon's worth of Foresters. "Make sure the standard metahuman notice-me-not fields are set up!" the grandmaster immediately barked to the sergeant in command of that particular platoon, making the crowd of running Canadian magicals stop as they listened to her commands. "There are doomsday cultists who have placed themselves in areas close to the Naval District grounds! If they see the extent of Ataru's and Roberta's power as they bond, there could be a future attack! Move!"

"Yes, ma'am!" the sergeant barked out, then he got his people to work.

The shipgirls who came from Hamachaya gaped while the transplanted natives of Tomobiki blinked. "What the hell's this crap about doomsday cultists, Negako-san?" Ryūnosuke demanded as the carriers readied bows — or in Warrior's case, a C1A1 battle rifle with C2A1 thirty-round magazine — to launch patrols to scan around the grounds for potential attack.

"One of the darker sides of this whole situation, Ryūnosuke," Negako stated as she watched the brilliant blue-silver of Rain flames start to erupt from every place on Roma's human body and from all over her now-deployed rigging. "There are those now living on Earth who are convinced that humanity is doomed to extinction and wish to hasten that eventuality by any means possible, including launching attacks on defenceless civilians recovering from an Abyssal attack."

All of Ataru's old classmates gaped. "That's a JOKE, I hope!" Chigaiko hissed.

"It is no joke, Chigaiko-san."

Eyes locked on Yamato, even Yonaga. "Negako-sama, please tell me if there are any of those cowards close by," the seventh carrier snarled out. "If they are so crazed to die, I'll be pleased to send them on their way!"

"You can't do it normally, Yoiko," Negako stated...

...before a scream of delight escaped some of the destroyers as a burning bird-like creature leapt away from Ataru to start flying around his lover's beautiful flame aura. " _ **PHOENIX!**_ " Shiratsuyu howled from off to one side.

"Not a phoenix, Miroko!"

Eyes locked on Negako. "That's a _**windrider**_ , Thoughtmistress-prime?!" Arisugawa Yui demanded before she gaped once more on that glowing creature as it seemed to dart in and away from the tips of Roma's flames like a hummingbird.

"Indeed it is, Yui,"

"Poi! What's a windrider, Sensei?!"

People gazed on Yūdachi, who had been carried out of her room at flank speed to see this by Shigure and Harusame. "A mythological creature on Sagussa whose existence even outlasted the Clone Rights War, Kodachi," Negako explained. "They kept what few animals that escaped the devastation of the planet alive by guiding them telepathically to oases where water and food could be obtained. Even when the Daishi'cha were drawn there by the Gatherer, the windriders guided them, even shielding them from those who sought to destroy them. One even teleported itself to Yiziba to have Josef directly intervene, saving the lives of all those who had befriended Ataru before he took the Promise all those years ago."

She reached over to massage a place on the back of Reborn's neck just as a burst of energy from Roma caused the legendary hitman to shudder slightly as he felt that incredible aura. "Harmonization?" Yorktown automatically asked.

That made him jerk before he gazed intently at the first of her class. "Quale famiglia sei?" he demanded in Italian.

She looked at him in confusion, then she sighed as something came to her. "Tomaso and Beccio. I doubt I'll have that gift..."

Reborn blinked, then he chuckled. "You are fanciulle della flotta, Signorina Livingston. Even if your crew's blood was far removed from the homeland, the gift carried over even to America. It will happen to you one way or another."

"Harumi hopes that Reborn-sensei will come when Ellie-chan's flames do awaken."

The hitman blinked, then he turned to see the steely gaze of the fourth of the Kongō-class landing on him. "Of that, you can place a winning wager, Signorina Chihaya," Reborn vowed as he tried not to sweat; as powerful as he was, he wouldn't win against a broadside of eight 36 centimetre 45 calibre 41st Year Type rifles, especially at the point blank range he was at now.

"Harumi, stop!" Rose Potter then gently scolded. "Remember, Master Renato is forever under the vow of Omertà. He cannot violate his own ethics and loyalties — such as they are — just on a whim, even to help Miss Eleanor!"

"Oh, you both hush!" Kongō snapped. "Don't interrupt this!"

Haruna gasped. "Onē-sama!"

She and her sisters gaped on seeing the rosy aura that just descended upon the first of their class. "To see such a display of BURNING LOVE!" she then swooned before waiving at the glowing figures out on the track field. As romantic music echoed out of nowhere and sakura petals showered over the scene, Gotō Kiichi's would-be wife could only shudder from her keel to her foretops at the wonderful display off her bow. "Look at that! To see such love from Ataru-kun and Roberta-chan, expressed so openly among friends and family! It makes me feel so happy!" Instantly, the British-born fast battleship locked her eyes on the handsome man watching this from his place by the administration building. " _ **TEI-...TO-...KU!**_ "

Before she could race over to do her flying leap and tackle move on the leader of the Fleet Shipgirl Project, a hand snared her by her top and yanked her right off the ground. "HEY!" Kongō screamed out before she looked over. "YOIKO!"

An icy smile crossed the face of the fifth of the Yamato-class. "Anne-san, you did say there should be _**quiet**_ , remember?"

That made Kongō gape at the carrier before she blushed...

"It's started!"

Eyes locked on Kirishima, then they gazed out towards Roma...

...before people gasped on seeing her rigging start to melt and transform. Using their special sight, all the shipgirls watched as the whole very form of the third of the Littorio-class battleships became something quite modern. Her raked bow gained a bulbous projection under the waterline to increase speed. The small lower quarterdeck behind her third turret was enclosed with a new transom stern containing an internal hangar deck for two AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin anti-submarine helicopters, complete with magnetic lift to the flight deck. The four triple OTO Melara 152 millimetre 55 calibre Ansaldo Modelle 1936 wing turrets vanished, replaced by four single OTO Melara/Breda 127 millimetre 64 calibre lightweight rapid-fire guns. All of Roma's tertiary and anti-aircraft armament vanished, replaced by four Dardo twin Breda/Bofors 40 millimetre close-in weapons systems and four 64 cell SYLVER A-70 vertical missile launch clusters for the Aster 30 anti-air missile and the Storm Shadow SCALP-EG cruise missile. Naturally, all sensor systems were updated to accommodate the new missile systems, including the same MFRA active electronically-scanned radar system that two of her fleet mates had just received thanks to their "upgrade kisses" earlier in the evening, that now perched on Roma's forward superstructure. Seeing that, all the shipgirls could only guess what was happening inside the hull of their friend; given how fast a Littorio-class was...!

"They even out-shoot the Iowas," Musashi muttered to Yamato.

"Mutsuko!"

The ash-haired battleship winced on sensing Yonaga's disapproving look. Everyone then perked as the just-upgraded Roma dispersed her rigging before she squealed as she lunged into swamp her lover with a very wet kiss. "Whoo! That's the style, Ataru-kun!" Rumiko cheered as all the shipgirls and a lot of the base staff whooped in delight on seeing such an open expression of love between the last host of the Earth Angel and the third of the Littorio-class battleships.

As Ryūnosuke also applauded that — with the two bonded now, there was no way in Hell that Redet Lum would have any moral right to come back to Earth and screw up lives anew — she then perked on seeing a sad look cross Chigaiko's face. Remembering how much Ataru had done for the "ghost" of Class 2-4, Ryūnosuke then reached over to squeeze her shoulder. "He still cares for you, you know," the tomboy whispered to the former basketball team centre, making Chigaiko blink.

Hearing that, Chigaiko sighed. "Yeah...!"

Zuikaku's hand squeezed her other shoulder...

" _ **HEY! WHAT THE HELL...?!**_ "

"Chill, Lois Lane! Like, you got a BIG scoop to cover now!"

Eyes locked on the field close to Ataru and Roma...

...where four confused shipgirls of the Sixth Cruiser Squadron — who had been in the Solomon Sea not seconds before — looked around in confusion. Fortunately, Aoba was quick on the uptake...and clearly knew about the world's first nuclear-powered surface warship having been turned into a shipgirl. "Huh?! What big scoop are you talking about, Mama Cass?!" the adopted native of Maizuru and Nagasaki demanded as she leaned up to stare into Long Beach's eyes.

Long Beach helpfully pointed over, making the shipgirl reporter look...

...then she squealed as she instantly started making pictures of Ataru and Roma, now cuddling each other and in the post-bonding bliss Avalonian couples always experienced whenever they came down from the incredible mental high of merging their souls temporarily when they marked each other as one's marei'cha. As Furutaka, Kako and Kinugasa all whooped in delight, Nagato sighed...though she herself was quite moved by such a sight. She then perked as someone pulled on her thigh-highs, making her look down to see a smiling Hoppō gazing up at her. "It's alright, Mama," the child-shaped princess assured her. "Now that Ataru-niichan and Zia Roma are together, he won't have to put on that death armour anymore."

Nagato blinked before she knelt down to pull her adopted daughter into her arms. "May it be so, Hoppō-chan," she whispered as a song that Ataru himself chose once to represent all the shipgirls' struggles echoed in her mind...

 _Soldiers write the songs  
_ _That soldiers sing the songs  
_ _That you and I won't sing.  
_ _Let's not look the other way;  
_ _Taking a chance!  
_ _'Cause if the bugler starts to play,  
_ _We too must dance..._

* * *

 _ **Rajdhani on Tahupraemiku, an hour later (local time: The 25th Day of the Eighth Month, two hours before supper)...**_

"I honestly want to throw up now..."

Hearing that comment from one of her oldest childhood friends, Oyuki of Neptune sighed as she reached over to gently squeeze Redet Lum's shoulder. "Don't give them that satisfaction, Lum-cha," the crown princess of her people whispered. "Yes, it was something that would have probably made your husband spit fire even when he was under the influence of all these creatures that haunted Tomobiki all these years. But as long as the Academician's shield remains..."

"They won't give up, Oyuki," Shigaten Benten warned, shaking her head. "Moroboshi went to the fucking _**You Know Whos**_ to get help keeping aliens off his planet. That's a collective kick in the ass to Yethis and his idiots, not to mention our so-called 'most faithful'. Especially with them now totally cut off from Earth and having lost their 'robot slaves' at the same time. They're not going to let the 'great evil' get away with that, especially with him being the Chosen One, too."

The warlord's daughter from Onishuto grimly nodded. Logically speaking, what Moroboshi Ataru had helped instigate behind the scenes over the last year had been the right and proper thing to do. Once he realized how badly the threat to his home planet was, he moved to immediately eliminate it. In that, he was lucky that there were a large adopted group of They Who Must Never Be Named on Earth who could help out, the primary one being the leader of the Circle of Thought, the _**Academician**_ herself; Lum didn't know the American woman's real name, but she knew that woman and her twin sister — the current incarnation of the Untamed One, _**Mustang**_ — lived closed to Los Angeles. Even more so, the two most powerful reality warpers among the metahumans of That World were natives of Japan, so they had more than enough reason to make sure the aliens stayed off Earth, especially with what Lum's "most faithful" had hidden in the Tomobiki Ginza for nearly a year. And now that the Avalonians were free and had full access to their creators' technology — which was MILLENNIA ahead of anything any of the local powers possessed, even Vos or Dominos — they could help keep Earth closed from outside intrusion.

As far as Seq Yethis and Fangi t'ndai-Marthon were concerned, that would not be allowed to stand whatsoever.

Moroboshi Ataru would be made to pay for his "defiance" of his betters.

As would his people.

 _Hello, Mother of All Fight Scenes, Round Two...!_

Lum shook her head. She was just tired of it all. Having effectively been able to avoid the issues that had haunted her while she was on Earth pursing Ataru — where she didn't have to live as the "marble woman" as Urusian trash info-net networks always called her — she had been literally thrown into the emotional black hole that had once ruled her life when she was forced to decamp from Tomobiki and return home. While there hadn't been any casualties when it came to trying to test the shielding system at Ceres — for all her reputation, the current Academician appeared to be a humane person in the end — there had been losses of ships who tried the normal "close slingshot" move around Sol to head towards Gomiana or Toshitto when they passed through that particular solar system; those crews who were caught by it were teleported off their destroyed ships and sent to Tengsei — "Jiyū" to Urusians — and were in the process of being repatriated by the Noukiite authorities. For fairness' sake, the couple of times cloaked Ipraedies warbird-class stealth destroyers had tried to penetrate to Earth had been treated in the very same way, with the same results. Which seemed to follow the traditional path Earth's lost worldwide defenders, the famous "Men In Black" of the United Nations Special Committee of Alien Activities, had always pursued until they had disappeared; Lum now knew they had been all killed off in an Abyssal attack on New York City some years ago.

 _No wonder idiots are so emboldened now...!_

"You okay, Lum?"

Hearing Benten's concerned question, Lum sighed. "You want to know what I'd want to do right now, Benten?" she asked.

"Other than take Moroboshi to bed?" the Fukunokami biker-babe asked with a leering smile.

That made the warlord's daughter laugh as the crown princess of Neptune giggled at that comment. In the last few days as Lum's alien friends took a step back to think about what just happened to them all, the horrid truth of what had befallen her "darling" sank in hard and made them realize how close Lum had come to her own destruction via many means, the least of which being her own would-be sister-in-law Moroboshi Negako...never mind that darker side of Ataru that first came out at Morningstar Plain thanks to some hellish deity — from the world of the _**Maidens of the Eternal Voyager**_ of all places! — who picked the poor man out to serve as a sort of mortal avatar. While that ultimately DID get rid of all the non-corporeal spirits that loved to play havoc with Ataru's life, it had also completely shredded what sense of trust the man had in anything, most of all being Lum herself. Given that the Noukiites ultimately added salt to that wound to make sure Ataru would NEVER consider reuniting with Lum, that just made the pain even worse; if she only got the chance to explain everything to him...!

 _No! Can't think of that now...!_ the warlord's daughter sighed to herself before she smirked. "Find some way to contact Tariko and ask her to go on a nice 'walk' down the streets of Onishuto. Preferably to visit certain people's offices..."

Jaws dropped. "Are you fucking SERIOUS?!" Benten demanded.

Lum gave her a pained look before her shoulders seemed to deflate. "Benten, if one thing that happened to Darling in the last year proved anything to me, it's time I took on my own responsibilities for what I did to him and his people...and what I can do to prevent a real disaster from wrecking everything in the cosmos. You heard Yethis down in the main hall. Those demands are something that are MEANT to provoke a war! If Darling is as powerful as some people are now saying he is..."

"With very good reason," Oyuki cut in.

Eyes locked on her. "What do you mean, Oyuki?" Aruka Ran asked. While not a real close friend to Lum, Benten and Oyuki, the daughter of one of Redet Invader's late allies in the Urusian Union Congress had come along as moral support.

"If the Eternal Voyager itself is something to judge by, the power of the Avalonians' creator race could probably only be matched by the Shōzoki." That comment made the others in the room frown; the Shōzoki were a fabled reptilian-descent humanoid race said to live beyond Zephyrite space and who possessed levels of technology that seemed like magic, that not matched by any sort of self-control when it came to distributing it to less-advanced species, as many had learned fatally to their cost. "The Goa'uld and what might be left of the 'Four Great Races' won't be an issue here given what the Americans on Earth were said to have been done." Learning the secrets of the United States Air Force's Stargate Command had been quite hard for observers from Phentax Two to obtain, but it had been finally gathered shortly after the command was disestablished with the onset of the open war with the Abyssals five years ago after the Slayer of Ra, General Jack O'Neill, was appointed Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. That particular factoid, Lum now knew, had been deliberately masked from the Urusians at the direct order of Ōgi ot'ndai-Zkuhsbagh after he became President of the Niphentaxian Union six years ago; no doubt, it would allow him to have the final advantage should he ever feel it necessary to "rescue" his "goddess" from whatever threat faced her while on Earth. "Take the size of that ship: The size of a major city anywhere in the local cluster. Armed with planet-level annihilation cannons in the bow, plus particle pulse weapons and anti-ship missiles that could devastate whole solar systems. If this is TYPICAL of the old Sagussans, I shudder to think of what the Avalonians — who have more than enough of a grudge with us because of what our Niphentaxian 'friends' did to them — would be capable of unleashing on anyone who tries to suppress them. And they've got things in the inner part of the system behind the Ceres barrier."

"How could you tell?" Ran asked.

"They may be using cloaking devices to mask what's there, but one can't disguise the very minute shift of gravity fields that we can detect from monitor units beyond the Ceres line, Ran-cha," Oyuki supplied. "We think the bioroid factory is at the third libration point between Sol and Earth itself. But there's something much more massive — on the scale of a very small planetoid — at the third libration point between Sol and Mars. Given the physical scale of the Voyager..."

"Some sort of construction spacedock?" Benten mused.

"Most likely, Benten. Given the few images of Avalonian ships defending that planet in the neutral zone between ourselves and the Dominion close to Spotak that they claimed for themselves, this was probably where their old fleet had been stored."

The biker-babe shook her head. "Shit...!"

Everyone then perked as footfalls echoed from the outside, then they turned as their host came into the lounge. "How are you people?" Lupica then asked as Lum and her friends got up to their feet in respect of the leader of Tahupraemiku.

"Tired," Lum admitted as the raven-haired Arab-like princess waved them back to their chairs before taking her own seat. "And worried. If Darling's holding ace chips back to deal with the likes of Yethis and Fangi..."

Lupica grimly nodded. The representatives at that morning's meeting gladly voted down the Urusian/Niphentaxian demand to launch an invasion of Earth to "remove the anti-Federation forces" from the planet and reopen the whole of the planet and allow full unregulated contact with member-states of the Federation. Of course, the sheer extent as to what had been marked by Yethis and Fangi as "anti-Federation" had been just unbelievable. All the Avalonians resident on Earth were to be re-enslaved to the Niphentaxians if not outright destroyed, all of Earth's metahuman population (native and Yizibajohei-descent) were to be removed and a policy of mass-sterilization of Earth's large hidden magical population pursued! Not only that, if it was possible, shipgirls and Abyssals were to be removed from the planet as well; if they resisted, they were to be destroyed "by any and all means possible"...which would include everything up to and including any sort of weapon of mass destruction.

As to how the "normal" people of Earth were to be treated...!

Unfortunately, though...

"It's a pity that Darling and his friends didn't eliminate the factory satellites that the Niphentaxians had created to help build up their fleet during the Liberation," Lum then noted. "I know he did that to ensure the rebels under Miree would have the ability to defend themselves against the Ipraedies in case they decided to be stupid, but Yethis could easily send a task force to the system to seize them and turn them over to Fangi's control. If only General Lana would order his dismissal...!"

Wry smirks crossed the other people's faces as they considered that one particular quirk of Urusian politics. Much that the third world of Oniboshi was ruled by a military junta, its current leader couldn't rule by fiat; to keep things stable, the three main political parties had to be appeased and have influence in the government. It was only just ill-luck that had brought a radical right-wing conservative maniac like Seq Yethis into the position of chief of staff, which gave him operational control over the Urusian Defence Forces. What was worse, Lum now knew, key posts in the defence command hierarchy were being held by Yethis' allies in the Imperial Round. With just a few whispered orders to the right ear, total war could be unleashed and there was nothing that the nominal president of Uru could do to stop it before lives were lost at levels no one could begin to imagine; not even the infamous Mother of All Fight Scenes twenty-five decades before could match up to that.

" _ **LUM-SAMA!**_ "

Lum squawked as Lupica winced. "Oh, Fates...!"

Running feet heralded the arrival of her new "most faithful", the acting president of the Union of Phentax Two. Seeing the leer on that older man's face, the warlord's daughter gargled...before her eyes widened.

 _Damn it! If Darling can do this, so can I!_

At the top of her lungs, she then screamed the most feared word in the galaxy:

" _ **YIZIBA!**_ "

Shrieks of mortal terror filled the room from everyone there and who were racing madly to gaze upon their "goddess"...!

" _ **ACME TIME!**_ "

Lum blinked as hope billowed in her heart...

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

The jaws of all the girls who had been in the lounge at the time all dropped on seeing the big anvils — and yes, they were Terran iron anvils, all with **ACME** written on their flanks! — having smashed down the small crowd of Niphentaxians who had been racing in at top speed to see their beloved Lum-sama. Blinking in surprise on seeing that, Lum then sighed. "Tariko!" she called out, looking around. "Don't tell me you've been binge-watching too much on _Looney Tunes_ anime!"

"Well, if Onii-chan liked it, why can't I?!"

At the head of his delegation, the dazed Fangi gasped...

...before his voice caught in his throat and his bowels let go as a flash of energy allowed a woman in a snow-white jumpsuit with black belt and boots, trimmed on the sides with grey animal fur-like striping, to appear in the room. As her back was turned to the acting president of Phentax Two, the man who looked like an alien-born elder version of Aisuru Megane couldn't see the coyote's head insignia on the chest of the Trickster of the Great Show of Life. "Besides, all the jokes and punch lines are so SAME these days!" the woman known also on Earth as Moroboshi Tariko then breathed out dramatically as she came over to place herself beside her would-be sister-in-law, turning around to wrap a protective arm around the shoulders of the warlord's daughter from Onishuto. On seeing that, all the dazed Niphentaxians screamed in horror on realizing that one of the most dangerous beings in the Universe was now effectively holding their own living goddess HOSTAGE...!

Fortunately, Ran was quick on the uptake. "I take it you're not into death scenes. Are you, Tariko-chan?" she asked.

Tariko blinked. "Ran, do I honestly look like Doctor Death?!"

"Nah!" Benten cut in. "Uniform's wrong, there's no cape and hood and you'd be melting Lum's body by just touching her."

"Hey! There's someone who reads the story bible!" the reality-warper who in her past life had been the central icon of the Mother of All Fight Scenes then moaned. "Can we keep her, Lum? She's pretty cute for a norm...!"

" _ **NO! MERCY! PLEASE, TUYUKI-SAMA! MERCY!**_ "

Tariko blinked, then her face scrunched up. "'Mercy'? What's that? Is it good to eat?" As the women who interacted with her adopted brother gaped at her, she shrugged. "I hung around with Hiei a couple times! She's got weird taste-buds!"

"Is she the one who can poison the whole of the Yokosuka Naval District with just her curry?" Lum then asked, grateful for once that her "most faithful" had been willing to update her on EVERYTHING concerning the shipgirls when she got back to Onishuto and asked them. "Second of the Kongō-class battleships? The 'Quacky Quartet', they're called? Older sister's chasing her admiral, third sister's a closet psychopath and the fourth sister befriended an enemy aircraft carrier?"

"Yeah!" Tariko stated before an impish smile crossed her face. "Oh, Lum! Just remembered now! You have to hear this song Anne's pillow scene partner once came up with a couple seasons back! It's SO cute to listen to! This kitsune Onii-chan told me about down in Yokosuka overheard it once, then put it out on YouTube! Pity these same lovers who blocked you from seeing all the good stuff on that blocked that as well! The look on Anne's face was just so CUTE to see...!"

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Ono Shrine, that moment...**_

Meditating, Ono Haru perked as her tails suddenly appeared and her face changed.

There was only ONE being in the Cosmos who could make the four-tailed kitsune react THAT way...

And given that she was her adopted homeworld's version of the ultimate kitsune...!

" _ **Anne-chan!**_ " she barked out, throwing ki into her voice so she could be heard at the post-bonding party being held at the nearby Hamachaya on behalf of the adopted brother of the Trickster of the Great Show of Life upon the Seeker's Forge.

" _ **What is it, Haru-san?!**_ " Kongō's voice echoed back.

" _ **Tariko-chan's speaking about the song Kiichi-kun made for you to Lum-chan!**_ "

" _ **Eh?! Why would Tariko-chan do that?!**_ "

" _ **She's probably saying lewd things about you and your hubby, Anne!**_ " Ataru cut in.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **MOROBOSHI TARIKO! STOP TRYING TO CURSE MY PURSUIT OF BURNING LOVE WITH TEITOKU!**_ "

« _ **Honestly, Anne!**_ » the voice of a certain reality warper then echoed over the scene all the way from another planet. « _ **It's okay to talk about pillow scenes! Kiichi is sweet pillow scene bait for sure! If you don't want him...!**_ »

" _ **AH! YOU STAY AWAY FROM TEITOKU, YOU CRAZY COYOTE!**_ "

« _ **Anne and Kiichi, sitting in the tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G...!**_ »

" _ **AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! TEITOKU, DON'T LISTEN TO THAT...!**_ "

" **Tariko, cease that.** "

Haru blinked before she sighed.

"Thank you, Negako-sama...!" a moaning Gotō Kiichi groaned.

Yeah, there had to be the party pooper...!

" _ **Relax, Tariko-chan!**_ " Ataru then called out, which made Haru perk as she sensed that he wasn't letting this gag go. " _ **I'll do my best to teach Anne-chan and all others who need to understand the true sanctity of a pillow scene...!**_ "

" _ **ATARU!**_ " Kongō shrieked. " _ **STOP THAT! IT'S LEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWD...!**_ "

As screams echoed from Kongō's sisters, Ataru added, the mirth in his voice apparent, " _ **We can't leave it all to Onē-san!**_ "

« _ **True! We don't want to traumatize those poor kids! Hey, Sarah!**_ »

" _ **Eh?! What is it, Tariko-chan?**_ " Hiei called out; she had come to Yokosuka with Arizona and Yonaga earlier.

« _ **Someone just begged for mercy from me! Is that good to eat?**_ »

Haru could immediately imagine the icy grin now crossing the face of the second of the Kongō-class fast battleships. " _ **No, Tariko-chan! They're trying to do a grovelling scene with you now!**_ "

« _ **Ah, right...!**_ »

Haru smirked as she tried not to roll on her butt laughing while she picked up Kongō's embarrassed wailing in the background.

 _Yizibajohei!_

You can't ever hope to live with them...

...but DAMN if you just can't stop _**watching**_ their brand of CHAOS!

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile, back on Tahupraemiku...**_

A look of pure mayhem was now on Tariko's face. " _ **You trying to start a GROVELLING SCENE with me, SAME?!**_ "

Sensing his doom coming, Fangi shuddered before he screamed out, " _ **LUM-SAMA! SAVE ME!**_ "

As the others of his party wailed for help from their "goddess", Lum hummed, then she sighed. "Tariko-chan!"

The Trickster of the Show gazed calmly at her. "Yes, Lum?"

"Do with them what you want! Oh!" the warlord's daughter then perked as she held up a finger, which made all the Niphentaxians nearly pass out on realizing their "goddess" wasn't going to protect them. "If anyone from my planet who's not Lara-chan or any of her friends tries a grovelling scene with you, do with THEM what they want, too!"

Here, she then looked to her right, a lethal smile crossing her face...

...where a white-faced Seq Yethis was now standing in front of the other Urusian delegates, staring in total disbelief at her.

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

For those who are wondering, I base the human version of **THG** _ **Mikasa**_ ( **Tōgō Mihoko** ) on her _Azur Lane_ version without the ram's horns on her head. For those who don't know, _**Azur Lane**_ is a Chinese-made knockoff of _KanColle_ with a much more egalitarian list of shipgirl characters...with many of the shipgirls being _**therianthropes**_ to boot! Go figure...!

The mini-series concerning Krypton referenced to in the narrative in the first scene is _**World of Krypton**_. This is the second series of the name, published in 1987-88 as a four-issue volume and written by the man who had revamped the Man of Steel's whole myths in the wake of the shakeup unleashed by _Crisis on Infinite Earths_ , **John Byrne**.

Translation list: **Tennō Heika Uchūkan** — Space Warship of His Majesty the Heavenly Sovereign (short-formed **THU** ); **Ŏnni** — Elder sister (as addressed by a woman); **Ramyŏn** — Korean pronunciation of "rāmen", representing a more spicier version than the average Japanese variant; **Kyŏngsangbuk-to** — North Kyŏngsang Province; **Seine Kaiserliche Majestät** — His Imperial Majesty; **MEO** — Magical Executive Order (pronounced alphabetically); **Quale famiglia sei?** — What family are you?; **Omertà** — The code of silence practised by the traditional mafia of Sicily, which demanded no "snitching" to authorities if one was caught; **Dardo** — Dart; **SCALP-EG** — Short for **Système de Croisière Autonome à Longue Portée — Emploi Général** ("General Purpose Long-Range Standoff Cruise Missile"); **Zia** — Aunt.

The number of Korean family names in actual use in both the South and the North number about 280 according to Wikipedia. The family name **Kim** ( **김** [hanja **金** ]) was used by nearly one-fifth of the whole population of South Korea as of the year 2000. To better tell where someone comes from, those bearing the same family name are sub-divided into **pon'gwan** ("native root"), named after the general ancestral home of these clans. The term "clan" itself is translated as " **ssi** " (pronounced [s͈i], with the consonants sounding similar to the English "s" but with a stiff tongue and glottal opening of the vocal folds in the larynx); yes, this is the same word used as the Korean version of the Japanese "-san" suffix honorific. Hence, you get something like **Yŏn'il Sŭng-ssi** ( **연일 승씨** [ **延日 承氏** ], "Sŭng Clan of Yŏn'il") for someone like **TKK** _ **T'aekp'ung**_ ( **Sŭng Sŏnghan** ).

Many thanks to **Zulaq** at Sufficient Velocity for his suggestion concerning the type of Dying Will Flames that **MM** _ **Roma**_ ( **Roberta Ansaldo** ) would manifest when she bonded with her lover. For the information of fans of _Katekyō Hitman Reborn_ , **MM** _ **Zara**_ ( **Zita de Lerici** ) is a Sky while **MM** _ **Pola**_ ( **Paola de Lerici** ) would have a mixture of Storm and Lightning flames.

Yizibajohei euphemisms and terms introduced here (so one doesn't need to read _The End of the Circle_ ):

 **Death scene** — Self-explanatory, usually very dramatic.  
 **(One) who reads the story bible** — A person who fully understands the situation.  
 **Norm** — Someone without paranormal or metahuman powers, a normal person.  
 **Pillow scene** — Sexual intercourse.  
 **Season** — A solar year.  
 **Same** — Member of a race whose people share the same paranormal ability. Viewed VERY negatively on Yiziba; the common belief there is that sames are genetic dead-ends, only destined to go extinct.  
 **Sweet pillow scene bait** — A very handsome man/beautiful woman, immediately desirable for sex.  
 **Grovelling scene** — When someone begs for mercy (which, by the way, is NOT a word in Yizibajohei).

As for **Gotō Kiichi** 's personal song for **THG** _ **Kongō**_ ( **Chihaya Anne** ), go to YouTube and search for "Kongō Bongo".

Shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Harusame** — Hamamoto Hideko


	26. When Graf Zeppelin Gets a Starship

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, the Toranoseishin Finances Tower, Friday 26 May, an hour before breakfast...**_

"I hate myself now, Tariko..."

Hearing that from her adopted brother, the Trickster of the Great Show of Life stared at him for a moment before she shook her head. "You had to do it, Ataru," Moroboshi Tariko warned. "Much that she is a decent face deep down, she was still way too naïve in too many ways. Everyone she's dealt with over the years sheltered her too much, even her friends. She couldn't conceive of what you had to go through when Keiseri gave you his Gift to make you what you are now. You had to show it to her." She sipped the English breakfast tea Kongō had reluctantly made for her; the lead of her class of fast battleships was STILL sulking over Tariko's teasing her the previous evening. "She took it better than I first thought."

"So what happened with this arrogant testa di cazzo who commands the useless fool blue-bloods on that planet?" Roma asked as she gazed upon her sister-in-law. "Is he still demanding all of Earth be subjected to him and his friends?"

"Right now, he's hiding under the bed in his guest quarters in Rajdhani," Tariko answered, a twinkle in her eye. "I promised Lupica I'd use my powers to clear the stench out of that place once he and his idiots did their retreat scene back to Uru."

"Right in front of him, I hope?" Hiei asked.

"Of course!"

"That must have been a boasting scene!" Ataru noted.

Laughter filled the lounge as people enjoyed their morning pick-me-up before they would have breakfast, then get on with the rest of their day. "Such a pity that some people just don't want to let things go," Gotō Kiichi mused from beside his would-be wife. He came to Tomobiki to get briefed on the recent incident in the capital city of Tahupraemiku involving Ataru's adopted sister in lieu of having Tariko come to Yokosuka; this was due to his private fear of what the Trickster of the Show might do if she was exposed to the "sameness" of many elements of the Yokosuka Naval District. Yes, the shipgirls were seen as properly unique by Yizibajohei standards, but the human staff there...! "I can understand the fear of being trapped between three very large powers. Any nation here on Earth who's been in that situation would react in pretty much the same way; look what Japan did when it was encroached on by the West." As people grimly nodded to that observation, the commander of the Fleet Shipgirl Project shook his head. "Gods! How can someone from that planet be so racist?" he then demanded as he looked at Redet Lum's would-be husband. "Look how much Lum tried to fit in when she was living with you, Ataru-kun."

Ataru shrugged. "It probably stems from the brainwashing people on that planet go through to 'experience' the memories of those who lived through the Mother of All Fight Scenes as a way of 'keeping up the scare' to keep people in line and support the government. No doubt, Rei's uncle and his friends were made to see by their parents and relatives how much 'they who must never be named' ultimately ROBBED the Imperial Houses of their wealth and status." He shrugged again. "In the end, I don't know and I don't really care. All I know is that Lum's finally made a stand to take control of her life. Even if Yethis' allies try to denounce her as a 'class traitor', too many on that planet see her still as their great heroine for opening first contact with Earth, like magical folks in Britain see Harry-chan as their 'boy who lived'. That'll provide her security in case someone gets stupid. Lara-chan and her friends are there to watch over her as well, not to mention Benten-san and Oyuki-sama."

"Can this Lara be trusted, Moroboshi?"

He stared at Mendō Shūtarō, who had come to the tower to continue to learn what the plans were for easing the Mendō Conglomerate back into the overall economy of Japan in the wake of being partially isolated from it for a year. Ataru suspected his old school rival was also interested in one of his clone-replica sisters, Hano Wakaba, in a more than friendly way...which was understandable even if Shūtarō had twelve would-be lovers among the assistant Avalonian observers who had been based in Tomobiki that now served as his personal "angels". Fortunately, thanks to the Niphentaxians' secret religious police, Ataru's clone-twins who had been remade into physical replicas of the characters of _Colourful Kiss_ had been also mentally adjusted enough to accept the honest romantic interests of a man. Even more so, they had the knowledge of Saikō Jinseijutsu to defend themselves in case some idiot decided to be stupid, so he didn't have to be a protective big brother for them.

After all, if he freaked out on his rival after Shūtarō had always defended his sister Ryōko from Ataru's many advances...!

"The original Lara? Never!" he then answered. As people stared at him, he smirked. "The Lara that's now watching over Lum was a gynoid replica of the original, built to help raise two orphaned daughters of the head of one of the Imperial Houses in private away from the madness on Uru." As Shūtarō gaped at him, Ataru winked. "Tariko discovered their ship close to the Den'sha system, where the old Sagussan fleet and main space dockyard had been stashed during the War of Clone Rights."

"When I got aboard, I saw that the gynoids were pretty much breaking free of all their programming, so I felt it was only the right thing to do to give them organic bodies," Tariko added. "After all, I had the whole bioroid factory to use if I had to." As people nodded, a sheepish look then crossed her face. "Little did I realize until it was too late was that the gynoids were mentally linked to their templates. When their souls did body-swaps, the originals...well, they had their death scenes."

"Fortunately, Suzumiya Haruhi was able to teleport the replicas to where their templates were at the very moment they died, then remove the corpses," Moroboshi Negako added. "None who knew those women — even family members such as Lara's father — were the wiser since the replicas received real-time downloads of their templates' memories. As soon as potential threats were suppressed with assistance from Mizuhara Koyomi, the replicas were able to take over their templates' lives."

"Which one is Koyomi-san again, Negako-san?" Nagato asked.

« _ **Soul Searcher.**_ »

"Hey, Yomi!" Ataru called out after that voice rang in people's minds. "Another quiet day at school for you guys?"

«Just counting the days until summer vacation when we can go up to Chiyosuke's summer home and relax for a month,» the mental "voice" of Yiziba's most powerful telepath answered from nearby Itabashi. «Might spend some time on Yiziba itself to meet up with old 'allies' from my previous lives. I know Tomo is getting pretty antsy to have some decent fight scenes in the Battlezone and get some good exercise. She doesn't like picking on Abyssals. They're too easy for her.»

Laughter filled the room. Koyomi's old childhood friend, Takino Tomo, had been the third person of her current peer group to be Gifted by the Forge of the Seekers; when she was still in middle school, she became the current incarnation of the Wild Warrior of Passion, _**Warwind**_ , the effective equivalent of the Incredible Hulk on that planet. Of all Terran-born Yizibajohei, Tomo was one of the most active when it came to dealing with Abyssals who ended up doing something that got her attention. Gotō remembered a time the previous summer, just before the Tag Race, when the native of Itabashi was visiting Mihama Chiyo's summer home in Kashima at the northeast corner of Chiba Prefecture. Then, a small fleet of Abyssals led by a jellyfish-type aircraft carrier princess launched a raid on Kashima. A stray bomb nearly blew in the ceiling of the Mihama summer home. Tomo flew out there, then personally dismembered all of them for threatening her friends. Fortunately for future relations with Uru — Redet Lum's people would have automatically been on the lookout for any Yizibajohei presence on Earth; this was just before the whole time-shift issue with Ataru and Negako, which got Elizabeth Wakefield to start working on the necessary systems to keep visiting aliens from the worlds of the Galactic Federation hemmed within Tomobiki — the Kantō Magical Association masked the fight from the media. Due to Tomo's youth and the VERY anti-establishment worldview people from Yiziba always possessed, Gotō was able to stop moves by the Self-Defence Forces to draft her into the ranks.

"It is a pity that your past-selves' memories of that horrid time when they first became metahumans so haunt you even now that you wouldn't consider being more forgiving of those in power, Mizuhara-dono," Yonaga mused; the carrier was standing by the window gazing out at the cityscape around her while she enjoyed her own morning tea. "If Takino-dono is happy to help put down those yōma whenever they get close to defenceless people, the whole of the nation would benefit from her actions."

«My 'Terran' side understands that, Yoiko-san,» Koyomi answered that. «But my 'Yizibajohei' side looks at what you people do to yourselves when you sign up to serve the nation and I have a tonne of flashback scenes from before the Dawn of Power.»

"That bad?" Saratoga asked from beside her fiancée.

«Worse, Dionne-san.»

«'Sides, its ultimately _**your**_ fight scene, not ours,» the voice of Koyomi's best friend cut into the mental conversation, revealing that all the "Azuma Gang" — so called because they now attended Azuma Senior High School in second year — was listening in to this conversation between Itabashi and Nishitōkyō. "Yeah, I love to mix it up with anyone who gets me mad, but it's kinda rude to butt into other people's fight scenes. Denies them the right of the victory scene, after all!»

"So speaks an eloquent philosopher of fight scenes!" Tariko then teased.

« _ **OI! DON'T BE SO FUCKING INSULTING, MOROBOSHI!**_ »

Yonaga's eyebrow twitched as others in the room and in Itabashi laughed...

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, the Astronomy Tower, that moment (local time: Thursday 25 May, an hour before midnight)...**_

"Oh, thank you, Bella. I should have remembered to bring that to class tonight."

"It's alright, Aurora. I wasn't busy."

Hearing that dull voice from a woman who had been as feared as Voldemort himself when she was fighting for him over a decade before, Aurora Sinistra could only shake her head before she gazed on the students who were scanning the evening stars for their weekly Astronomy class, holding the old astrolabe that Bellatrix Lestrange had been asked to fetch. Sensing Neville Longbottom briefly gaze in sympathy at her, the half-blood native of Harare in Zimbabwe — she was a half-British alumnus of Uagadou from the Mistresses' Class of 1978; her father had been the ambassador to that nation from the Ministry of Magic, thus she had been allowed to become Hogwarts teaching staff despite traditional opposition of "foreign" masters coming to teach British wizards and witches — lightly smiled. While she had been raised in a pure-magical environment even if her mother was a muggleborn, she still found some of the more esoteric traditions about her father's native society quite unnerving. Especially when it came to the treatment of women in certain circumstances...even if, given the sheer scale of Bellatrix's crimes, she could be seen as having deserved to get her mind raped by the Hollows of Gonebren.

"That is quite the amazing device you have, Frau Professor. How old is it?"

Aurora smiled before she held it out for Germany's first aircraft carrier to take into hand. Graf Zeppelin had come to Hogwarts along with a jäger company of the Second Battalion of the Black Maidens, both to support Diana von Meißen's people in case someone got stupid as well as to look in on Harry Potter and the others of his peers who had won the interest of shipgirls worldwide. Currently, the pioneer platoon that had been attached to No. 23 Jäger Company — the group was commanded by a distant cousin of Theodore Nott, Major Robyn Willhelms of Stade near Hamburg — were removing the last of the cursed items that Voldemort left in the defence classroom many years ago which had been responsible for the death and maiming of dozens of teachers since the Dark Lord tried to become the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher shortly after he returned to Britain after years of intensive study abroad to master the dark arts. To replace the recently-deceased Quirinus Quirrel, Albus Dumbledore asked for expert duellers from Elizabeth Gibbon's command to spend one week at the school each to brush up everyone's skills while he located a new full-time teacher. While some of the pureblood students were a little wary to learn from the deadly angels that had been Gellert Grindelwald's personal shock troops, others were happy to take lessons from experienced and dedicated warriors who had even fought the _**War Hawks**_ during the magical side of World War Two.

"It's from the time of Columbus, Gräfin von Zeppelin," Aurora answered as she sensed the "Black Baroness of Brandenburg" gaze intently at the blonde aircraft carrier-turned-beautiful twenty-something woman. Trying not to smirk at the clearly obvious signs of attraction between Diana and the shipgirl also known as Amélie von Zeppelin, the astrology professor added, "It's not as accurate as a modern gyro-compass on a sailing ship, but it does take good readings on land."

"Ja," Zeppelin said as she gently took the ancient device in hand, her crew gushing instantly at their ship getting a chance to touch such a beautiful and well-preserved artifact of nautical history. "Pity I'm not used to this..."

"I thought muggle sailors were always taught how to properly sail using the traditional instruments," Ronald Weasley noted.

"For Lady von Zeppelin, it's different, Ron," Justin Finch-Fletchley explained as he gave the carrier a sympathetic look. "She only had a caretaker engineer crew aboard her hull because she wasn't completed or commissioned during the war."

"Most of my crew these days are ex-Luftwaffe pilots who strongly believed in the idea of the Kriegsmarine getting its own long-distance mobile air arm," Zeppelin added, her cheeks flushing as she handed the ancient astrolabe back to her host. "Retraining them to work on a ship was difficult, but Professor Fregattenkapitän Berner managed to get them all put into good shape when I spent time at Great Lakes before I went to Yokosuka to learn the proper tactics from Anna and her friends."

"Professor Berner?" Hermione Granger asked.

"Training carrier Sable, Hermione," Harry explained. "Wanda Berner is her human name. She's an old paddle-wheel cruise ship that worked the upper Great Lakes until she was requisitioned for the war and turned into a training carrier. The older President Bush actually earned his carrier qualifications on USS _Sable_ before he went to the Pacific to fight the war."

"She wasn't harsh to you, was she, my lady?" Nyx Letum, one of those from Rhosan Green that had been rescued before the start of the school year by Long Beach, asked as she gazed at the adopted native of Konstanz near the Swiss border.

"She had to be, Fräulein Letum," Zeppelin said.

"Can you say what she told you when you started training with her, Tante?" Harry then asked as he gazed knowingly at her, making the carrier blush. "You have to hear this, guys. It's just as poi as Professor Snape's introductory speech!"

He gazed on Severus Snape, currently seated beside Diana von Meißen at the back of the room. As the potions master perked on hearing what his late friend's son wanted to have his peers hear — while he desperately tried NOT to blush at the compliment Harry just gave him about the speech he always gave freshmen in their first class with him — Zeppelin sighed before she straightened herself, then said in a voice that made most petty officers at basic training seem paltry in comparison, "'Lieutenant Zeppelin, you have the honour of partaking in the lessons that I shall impart on you to becoming an effective aircraft carrier! Many have trained under me, including a lad who later seized greatness and became president of this great country! I expect no less than your utmost under my guidance or I'll have you sent to the breakers so fast, you will wish you were never summoned to that insane farce at Mürwik a month ago! Your fear right now will be minuscule compared to what I shall bestow upon you if you do not cease your snivelling immediately! I DEMAND the BEST from you! Is that understood?'"

"Merlin!" Draco Malfoy breathed out as many of the people there quaked at such a threatening voice even if the one so speaking it was just quoting from her old basic training instructor. "She's sounds even worse than Master Auror Moody!"

"She's pretty good in teaching things and helping others review things concerning carrier operations, Drake," Harry stated. "Even Aunt Anna, Aunt Kei and the others admire Commander Berner for her knowledge and foresight into tactics. She could never be a full carrier because they never put things like hangar decks, guns and all that in her hull after they transformed her from what she was like as the _Greater Buffalo_ , but the knowledge she got from her crew helps out a lot."

"You'd actually have a big advantage there, Commander," Kevin Entwhistle noted.

Zeppelin perked. "What do you mean, Herr Entwhistle?"

The normal-born architect's son from Accrington in Lancashire shrugged as he gave her a knowing look. "Isn't it the rule in all navies that aircraft carriers have to be commanded by qualified airplane pilots?" he asked.

That made the carrier blink, then she hummed. "True..."

"What in Merlin's name...?!"

Eyes turned to one side of the tower. "What is it, Susan?" Hermione asked.

Susan Bones shook her head. "I'm seeing something I don't understand, 'Mione..."

"Wait a moment, Susan," Aurora called out as she drew her wand.

The others remained silent as the astronomy professor cast a spell to create a magical version of a targeting laser for the others in her class to focus on through their telescopes, having that "fired" from the end of Susan's device. With that, everyone shifted their telescopes over to take a look themselves. "What exactly did you see, Freiin Bones?" Zeppelin asked as she walked over to stand close to the niece of the current head of Britain's magical law enforcement group.

Susan shook her head. "It's...YOU, Lady von Zeppelin."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Susan, that's not poi!" Harry objected. "Aunt Amé's old hull is still on the bottom of the Baltic off Poland! There's no way that anyone could salvage it, much less do what they did in that anime series Aunt Yasuko hates...!"

"Um, mate..."

Harry looked at Ron. "What...?"

"It's true," the redhead warned. "It looks like what Commander von Zeppelin would have looked like as a ship..." He then blinked. "Except they got the exhaust of _**jet engines**_ where her propeller shafts should be located..."

"I see it!" Hermione called out, shaking her head. "Wait! I'm looking on the funnel. There's a pendant number: 'F01'."

"That's MY pendant number...!"

Eyes locked on Zeppelin, who had a confused look on her face. "Um...isn't 'F' supposed to mean a frigate?" Wayne Hopkins, a muggleborn farmer's son from Melton in Leicestershire who was a part of Hufflepuff, then asked.

"In the Commonwealth, Herr Hopkins," the carrier answered. "Germany has no frigates now, so the 'F' pendant superior can be used to mean 'flugzeugträger'." At the confused look on some people's face, she added, "Aircraft carrier."

"So that's what Eliza won't tell me..."

Eyes locked on Diana, who had walked over to gaze through Juno Meretrice's telescope on the object now attracting everyone's attention. Given it seemed to be at the same place, it was probably in geosynchronous orbit, which put it at the level of the equator over forty-two thousand kilometres away near the meridian of Hogwarts. As Severus came up to look through his godson's telescope, he asked, "Would this be some special project to help keep the aliens away, Colonel?"

"It would be the wisest thing," the native of Senftenberg noted. "I know the Avalonians brought the old central fleet dockyard that had been abandoned during the Clone Rights War to this system; it's opposite the Sun from Mars now. But..."

"Well, there's one good thing."

Eyes locked on Harry. "What's that?" Hermione asked.

"No Wave Motion Gun, Hermione."

The muggleborns and some of the others who were familiar with THAT particular anime series nodded. By then, Zeppelin's curiosity was getting the better of her. "Um...bitte entschuldige mich...could I...?" she sputtered out.

Harry waved her over. The carrier walked up to bow her head over the eyepiece as several of her crew came out from under the flaps of her jacket to hop down and stare into the piece, some with tablets in hand to take down notes...

* * *

 _ **Orbiting over the north pole of Jupiter, a half-hour later...**_

"Commander! I'm picking up something in geosynchronous orbit over Earth!"

Prash of Kōmoros perked on hearing that from one of her subordinates, then she looked over from her command chair. "What did you just find, Korth?" the distant cousin of the current leader of her planet then asked.

"Something at the general meridian of Berlin in Germany," Shogai Korth reported as he tapped controls on his sensor board. "Power readings just leapt almost off all the scales right now. Definitely a starship, a HUGE one! But..." He shook his head. "Not a known old Sagussan design, Commander. It looks more like an Earth naval wet-ship, akin to that animation series..."

"The one Lady Yamato despises?" Dedron Jorash asked.

"Same! But it's not a battleship-type vessel. Flat top on the hull with a small superstructure to the starboard side..."

"Aerospace craft carrier," Holla de Baraton concluded.

"Yes!"

"You have an image?" Prash asked.

"On main screen, Commander."

People turned to look...

...then gaped in awe of what was now floating over Earth. "That's a really unusual design," Jorash mused. He had served time in the Urusian Defence Force, eventually coming out a patrol craft warlord — the equivalent of a lieutenant in most of the navies of Earth — before he joined the Union Observation Ministry, the government department in charge of researching less-advanced cultures. "A full-length landing deck on top, but no normal hangar decks. Unless those indents on the flanks..."

"Running visual comparison in the database for Earth warships," Holla then announced as her hands darted over her control station. "Since our Avalonian friends seem to want to make these things familiar to their new allies on Earth..."

"Modelling them after Earth surface warships?" Prash asked.

"Most likely, Commander...wait! Got a match!"

A window appeared on the main view screen, displaying a graphic of a ship that looked almost exactly like the starship whose power systems just turned on, thus alerting the Galactic Federation observers in orbit by Jupiter to its presence; clearly, it had been masking its presence by keeping power output to bare minimum. Notes were in Latin script; subcutaneous universal translation chips inserted in the observers' brains would allow them to interpret what was written in their own language. "War Navy Ship _Graf Zeppelin_..." Prash read. "From their Second World War. I recognize the name. She's from the Federal Republic of Germany. She returned as a shipgirl in that mass summoning at their naval school that ended in that insane free-for-all...!"

Laughter filled the bridge of the observation ship; that particular incident at Mürwik had caught the eye of all of them when they got the chance to review all the data that had been collected by Niphentaxian observers that their just-deposed president had blocked from passage to other interested parties over the years. "So why is this starship version of Lady Zeppelin powering on now?" Jorash then asked, crossing his arms. "Unless it could be something threatening Earth..."

"We could contact Lord Moroboshi and ask him," Holla proposed.

The others exchanged looks. They had monitored Nassur's call to Moroboshi Ataru shortly after the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom returned to their hometowns the previous day. "Will he want to talk to us?" Korth then asked. "No offence to Jorash, but Moroboshi has enough reasons to not care for us given how Lum and her friends behaved..."

"Where he got blamed for certain incidents," Prash concluded. "Let's just watch."

The others nodded...

* * *

 _ **In geosynchronous orbit at the Thirteenth Meridian east of Greenwich (over a point 15 kilometres southeast of Lekoko in Gabon), aboard Deutsche Marine Raumschiff**_ **Graf Zeppelin** _ **, that moment (Berlin time: Friday 26 May, a half-hour after midnight)...**_

"What the devil's going on here?!"

"I don't know, Herr Stabskapitänleutnant," the current Elder Mother of the Avalonians helping out aboard DMR _Graf Zeppelin_ , Karolin Schneider, stated as her hands flew over the master control board on the bridge of the space carrier which had been deliberately modelled after her adopted nation's first aircraft carrier. In the background, the powerful sounds of the starship's primary power systems coming on strongly echoed through the deck plates and bulkheads. "Something in the master control circuits energized all the ship's systems, bringing her to full battle alert. Nothing's on the threat board now..."

"Manoeuvring thrusters on line now, Frau Älteremutter!" Margarethe Meyer called over from the main helm station. "The ship's setting a course for atmospheric approach to Earth! I can't override the main controls...!"

Both Karolin and the senior naval officer in command of the caretaker crew aboard _Zeppelin_ , StKptLt Stefan Becker, gaped at the adopted native of Cologne. "How's that possible?" the senior lieutenant demanded. A survivor of the final wrecking of the pre-Abyssal War German Navy during Blood Week, the native of Emden had been happy to help serve as part of the plank owner crew of his country's first starship when it emerged from the Main Dockyard two months ago; before then, he had been one of the many who had been assigned to Mürwik in charge of training replacement human crews for new surface ships planned to help augment the shipgirl forces fighting the Abyssals. "Even if there is an AI on this ship...!"

"I know that, Stefan!" Margarethe snarled as she tried to reboot the control screen. "I'm running diagnostics now..."

"Rudder twenty degrees starboard, elevator up five degrees!" Karolin called out. "We're breaking orbit now, Stefan!"

"Shut the engines down!" Becker barked out.

" _ **I CAN'T!**_ "

Everyone on the bridge jerked as the beautiful starship heeled to starboard, her bow turning towards her mother planet...

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts, that moment...**_

"Well, she is a little changed from what you were designed to be, Tante Amélie..."

Graf Zeppelin faintly nodded as she tried not to scream out in frustration at this maddening moment. Aurora Sinistra had got out her master telescope to allow the carrier to gaze upon her space-faring namesake — just confirmed thanks to the bugwappen located close to the tip of the bow on both sides — which had broken orbit and was currently turning towards Earth. Thanks to the resolution of the larger device, Zeppelin could tell the ship was manned. As to who manned it...

"And you had no idea of this, Diana?"

The eyes of the students who were watching the approach of the starship turned briefly to gaze on their headmaster, who had responded to the astronomy professor's patronus alert as soon as her class made their discovery. "Nein, mein Freiherr," Diana von Meißen affirmed with the shake of the head. "I know Liza is aware of a special project that's being coordinated through the offices of the admirals in command of flottenmädchen worldwide, but not the specifics; she hasn't told us a thing."

"Why shape such a vessel as if she was a normal sea-going ship?" Severus Snape asked. "Given the lack of visible armament in the main hull under what would be the waterline, it would provide an excellent point of attack..."

Zeppelin shrugged. "I can't say, Herr Professor! My old hull had torpedo bulges and armour to protect the magazines, fuel tanks and machinery spaces, plus not compromise my buoyancy should something penetrate through unarmoured areas..."

"Unless they have deflector shields that could augment armoured protection," Hermione Granger proposed. "Like the _Enterprise_ does in _Star Trek_. Harry, did Ataru ever tell you anything about what starships out there have?"

Harry Potter shrugged. "So why's her flight deck so different from what the commander has?" Ron Weasley then asked.

"Angled flight deck, Ron," Justin Finch-Fletchley answered, making people gaze at the normal-born native of Lincolnshire. "They got developed after the Second World War to allow jets to operate from a carrier without causing accidents on the deck. The jets would take off from the bow of the ship straight forward, then land at an angle away from launching jets, thus prevent collisions, especially if they had to 'bolt' around for another landing attempt because they didn't snare an arrestor wire."

"She is pretty big," Hannah Abbott then noted.

"Why do you say that, Lady Hannah?" Libera Meretrice asked her housemate.

"Look at all the portholes in the hull and tower," the half-blood busker's daughter from London bade. "See how many of them are there, how closely they're stacked over each other like that? Commander, is that how your hull was designed?"

Zeppelin blinked before she looked through the larger telescope that her host had set up for her. "Nein," she then breathed out. "If those portholes say anything about the size of that thing..." She shook her head. "Maybe _**ten**_ times..."

Harry blinked, then he breathed out, "Poi...!"

"How big?" Draco Malfoy asked, quickly sensing the overwhelmed tone in his friend's voice.

The carrier closed her eyes as she wondered what the Avalonians — who had to be the only people capable of doing this — were thinking of when they built something like THAT! "Length overall 2625 metres. Beam overall 362 metres as originally built; this version of me would be wider now because of the angled deck and the shifting to starboard of the control island and funnel. Hull draft on water would probably be 85 metres with overall height from keel to mast top being 608 metres." She then took a deep breath. "Displacement would be — and again, this is just a basic guess — about thirty-three _**million**_ tonnes at full war load." As Harry's jaw dropped in shock, Zeppelin shook her head. "Why?! Why build something THAT big...?!"

"They always liked to build big."

Eyes locked on the commander of the Second Battalion of the Schwarze Mädchen. "Diana?" Dumbledore gently pressed.

The native of Brandenburg took a deep breath. "The old Sagussans' largest warship could take the whole of greater BERLIN within his hull, mein Freiherr," she whispered. "Besides, Herr Kapitän Invader's flagship was about a _**kilometre**_ long..."

"Intimidation, Albus," Severus concluded.

Grim nods all around. "Yeah! That's bloody intimidating," Ron noted...

* * *

 _ **Marineschule Mürwik in Flensburg, fifteen minutes later...**_

" _ **WHAT?!**_ "

The harried captain who served as VAdm Wilhelm Hartmann's chief of staff shook his head. "It's true, mein Admiral!" Kapitän zur See Emil Weber stated. "Something has awoken all systems aboard Raumschiff Friedrich Null Eins..."

"The _Graf Zeppelin_ , you mean?" the native of Frankfurt said as he nodded thanks while his current sekretärschiff, the third light cruiser Emden, came over with some coffee for the man to drink while he imagined what would the reaction of the government in Berlin — to say anything of the governments of Germany's old foes across Europe, not to mention citizens both here and abroad — to the public revelation of one now-operational part of what was locally called "Projekt Nachtadler".

"Jawohl, mein Admiral," Weber, a native of West Berlin who had commanded that city's like-named replenishment ship before Blood Week, said with a tired sigh. "Something's making the ship begin an atmospheric approach to Earth."

"Is Stefan trying to stop this now?" Hartmann asked.

"He and the crew are trying, sir. No go."

A depressed shudder ran through the body of the man in charge of Germany's flottenmädchen. He then perked as the computer that Emden used for her work as secretary ship pinged to indicate an incoming message. The red-haired, tomboyish light cruiser sat down by her desk and booted up her machine to see what was going on. She then winced before she gazed sympathetically at her boss. "Mein Admiral, Vizeadmiral Jones is calling in from Torpoint right now. Urgent," she announced.

"Here, Anna," Hartmann bade, waving to the large TV at one end of his office.

"Jawohl."

The screen flicked on to reveal a sympathetically smiling Sixth Sea Lord of the Royal Navy. "Having a touch of a problem, Wilhelm?" Vice Admiral Katharine Jones asked. "I just got a most interesting call from Menwith Hill minutes ago..."

"About the _Graf Zeppelin_. Ja, I know, Kathy! I know!" the native of Frankfurt affirmed with a nod. "No one knows what's happening. Emil, can you find out exactly where the _Zeppelin_ is going to break into atmosphere, please?"

"Of course, Admiral," Weber said as he bowed, then he nodded politely to Jones' image before he stepped out of the office.

"Stefan's trying to get control, I hope?" Jones asked.

"They're trying everything," Hartmann answered. "The whole ship is operating under full automated control. I'm trying to learn exactly where it's going to come down, but since these things can move fast in cislunar space..."

"Admiral! Signal from Menwith Hill!" a voice shouted from the background, one the German commander recognized as Jones' own secretary ship, the training aircraft carrier Argus. "They're in direct contact with _Graf Zeppelin_ right now."

"Three-way, Heidi!"

"Aye, ma'am!"

The screen split in half, the right side now displaying the command bridge of Germany's first starship aircraft carrier and a blushing staff captain-lieutenant in charge of the caretaker crew aboard her. "Guten Morgen, mein Admiral," Stefan Becker said with an embarrassed bow of his head, then he noted who else was on the current live-chat. "Frau Vizeadmiral Jones, Guten Morgen! I'm really sorry about this, but we seem to have a runaway raumflugzeugträger here...!"

"Where are you coming down, Stefan?" Hartmann asked.

"Right in the northern part of the Nordsee, Herr Admiral," Margarethe Meyer called from off-screen. "If we land, the bridge will be exactly halfway between Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands and Stavanger in Norway. Deep enough water to take us."

"Flash alert to all ships and shipgirls in that zone, all channels!" Jones barked to Argus. "If they're anywhere within ten kilometres of that location, move in any direction away from that location at full speed ahead!"

" _ **AYE, MA'AM!**_ " the training carrier barked out...

* * *

 _ **Two hundred kilometres east of Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands, minutes later...**_

«Say again, Argus?!»

«You've got yourself a bloody STARSHIP about to drop right near you and Upholder, Venturer!» Argus responded from Torpoint over the refined very low frequency communications bands all subgirls had been upgraded with to allow real-time audio signals when they were operating in shallow water. «Get your bloody arses in any direction AWAY from your current position, preferably towards shore! If you don't move now, you might get FORTY MILLION TONNES of warp-hardened duranium come down on your HEAD! You won't survive THAT! Move your arse, Jamie! And no bloody histrionics out of you, Mallorie!»

«Since when do we bloody well have a...?!» Upholder demanded from beside Venturer as the two subgirls quickly swung to port to head towards the Pentland Firth separating the Orkney Islands from mainland Scotland.

«Keep it quiet, Upholder!» Venturer snapped. «Silent running now!»

The tenth of the U-class submarines quickly clammed up as they pushed their electric motors to the maximum while they settled in on course 267, climbing up to their maximum ten knot underwater speed. As both subgirls moved their arms and legs in butterfly strokes to coax as much power out of their hulls as possible, their crews listened hard on passive sonar — one of many wonderful gifts from a remarkable polymath in Canada who had adopted the ancient technology of a long-abandoned alien observation outpost on Ellesmere Island to merge with shipgirl magic and give such people as Venturer and Upholder a sporting advantage over the Abyssals — to see if there was anyone else in range. Given that the North Sea Princess had quite the sizable submarine force available to her, having them detect the rapid movement of the two British submarines at high speed might earn their interest. Much that Venturer trusted her own weapons skills to get rid of any pesky So-class Abyssal, she did have the over-excitable Upholder with her at this time and was now responsible for the other subgirl's safety...

«Wer ist da draußen?!»

Venturer perked. «Kamelien?!»

«Venturer?! What the HELL...?!» U-47 demanded.

The ninth of the V-class submarines instantly reached out with both her active sonar and passive sensors to detect where the third of the Type VIIB U-boats currently was. Horrified that the subgirl known to close friends as Margarete Prien was heading EAST right to the potential landing zone of whatever the hell was now about to crash into the North Sea, Venturer called out, «Turn about, you bloody fool! We got an incoming starship about to crash into the sea right close to us! If you...!»

« _ **LIEBER GOTT IM HIMMEL...!**_ »

Venturer's almost-black eyes went wide on hearing U-47's horrified cry...

...before something slammed into her right from above, causing her to mentally scream as a titanic wave of overpressure smashed down on her hull from right above. _Oh, my God! It's right over me...!_ she croaked...

...before a strange wave of energy seized her hull, causing her to blank out as a weird ringing noise echoed around her...

* * *

...then she gasped as she collapsed onto a hard and cold deck!

Yelps of shocked surprise echoed around her as the absence of water encompassing her made the raven-haired subgirl bolt up, assuming a kneeling position similar to the standard seiza Japanese shipgirls often used when relaxing, eyes darting to and fro so she could take in where she now was. Quickly spotting a dozen other subgirls, she sighed in relief as pendant numbers registered in her control centre. Along with herself, the Royal Navy was represented by Upholder, Thrasher, Thorn, Trenchant and Thames. The Deutsche Marine unterseebootmädchen present were U-47, U-99, U-505, U-771, U-864 and one of the "milk cow" supply subgirls who always kept the fighting subgirls fed and fuelled, U-490. The last subgirl...!

"Didn't realize you were in the area, Maxine," Venturer said as the Type IXC/40 submarine once commissioned as U-190 before she had been surrendered to the Royal Canadian Navy at war's end came over to help her up to her feet.

"You weren't supposed to, Jamie," Avalon stated stated as she looked around, her charming Newfoundlander tones flecked by the native German descent from her original crew. Given that she had been practically adopted by members of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets when she and her sister Quadra (the former U-889) reported to duty at Cornwallis five years ago, it was understandable...even if there was resentment among some Germans about her now flying the Canadian White Ensign and not the Dienstflagge der Seestreitkräfte der Bundeswehr. Most of that idiocy came from ultra right-wing neo-Nazis who often shared notes with right-wing militarists in Japan when it came to bitching about "stolen" shipgirls serving under other nation's flags as witness the issue about most of Korea's current shipgirl corps. "Aircraft carrier hangar deck," she then concluded as the other subgirls got to their feet to look around, some helping others up. "Biggest damned thing I ever laid eyes on..."

"Looks rather familiar," U-490 mused as she pursed her lips.

"Ja," U-99 said. "Reminds me of the technical drawings of Amélie's hull..."

Venturer looked over at the subgirl who honoured the most successful U-boat ace of World War Two, then she concentrated. «Venturer to Argus!» she called out over VLF. «Heidi, can you hear me?! I'm with friends inside some ship hangar...»

«The _Graf Zeppelin_ , you mean,» Argus' amused voice called back from Torpoint, making all the subgirls perk as that signal beamed in loud and clear to their control centres. «Relax, Jamie. Someone's coming down to get you now.»

The subgirls all blinked. "We're INSIDE Lady von Zeppelin?!" Upholder demanded.

"She ATE us?!" U-864 gasped before she collapsed and started to cry.

"Oh, shut up, you idiot!" Venturer barked, causing the Type IXD2 submarine she had sunk back in early 1945 off the coast of Norway to yelp as she shied away from the V-class subgirl. "This is some _**starship**_ version of her..."

" _ **STARSHIP?!**_ " all the other British subgirls exclaimed.

" _ **WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?!**_ " Upholder demanded, looking almost as fanatic as the leader of Lum's Stormtroopers often did whenever Moroboshi Ataru did something that supposedly offended his "wife's" sensibilities or feelings. " _ **THIS IS AN INSULT! AN INSULT, I SAY! IF THERE'S SUPPOSED TO BE A STARSHIP VERSION OF ONE OF US, IT SHOULD BE A TRUE LADY OF THE SEAS, NOT THAT STRUTTING POPINJAY NAMED AFTER A BLOODY**_ **AIRSHIP** _ **OF ALL...!**_ "

 _ **WHAM!**_

Said submarine now found her face smashed into the deck thanks to a wooden mallet-like device welded by Avalon, who's silver eyebrows were twitching ominously. As the other U-boats flashed their former fleet mate a grateful look, the adopted native of Saint John's made the mallet vanish while the other members of the "Knights of the Undersea" — as almost all British subgirls named themselves as a group — shied from the older of the two U-boats who had been adopted by Canada.

"Do you MIND, Lieutenant?!" Avalon snapped as she drew her naval combat jacket from her rigging, then slipped it on over her black skinsuit, revealing her pay rank of lieutenant commander. "You nearly wreck my hydrophones every time with that stupid caterwauling you do whenever you come in range! It's bad enough you and your squadron of fools prance around like the actors of Monty Python did in all their silly movies, even on missions! It's a wonder that you don't kill the Abyssals from making them LAUGH themselves to death at such insanity!" As the other British subgirls gasped at such condemnation from the adopted Canadian, Avalon walked away, muttering darkly in her native German, "Verrückte britische Teetrinker...!"

"Thank you, Commander Wintermeyer," Venturer breathed out as she gave the silver-haired U-boat a knowing look.

Avalon flashed the V-class a smile. "You're welcome, Commander Launders."

"Are you girls DONE now?!"

The subgirls all looked over to what they believed was starboard...

" _ **STEFAN OSKAR BECKER!**_ " U-490 then shrilled on seeing her old training officer standing now on a balcony overlooking this vast hangar space, about two levels above the deck they stood on. Her face was now flush with motherly outrage as she stormed over to glare intently at Stefan Becker, making the native of Emden duck from the supply submarine's incensed look. " _ **YOU LOOK AS THIN AS A RAIL! WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU HAD SOMETHING DECENT TO EAT...?!**_ "

" _ **MUTTI!**_ " Avalon shrilled.

The adopted native of Eisenach in Thüringen winced on hearing her old fleet mate scream at her, then she gazed warily over her shoulder. Seeing that, StKptLt Becker shook her head. "Thank you so much, Maxine," he said. "Now, if you girls can go over to the turbolift down here..." — he pointed to an alcove with a set of dual doors at one side — "...and step inside, we can ascend to the main pilotage and you can get a proper and decent explanation as to what is going on here."

"Aye, sir!"/"Jawohl!" the subgirls all chanted...

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District Headquarters, an hour after breakfast (London time: An hour after midnight; Berlin time: Two hours after midnight)...**_

"I honestly don't envy you right now, Wilhelm."

"Thank you SO MUCH for that, Kiichi!"

Laughter filled the satellite frequencies that were now linking all the commanding admirals of shipgirls worldwide regardless of what time of day it was. Given the strange way the current war was being fought and the overwhelming need to coordinate tactics, all of Gotō Kiichi's peers worldwide were used to being up at odd times of days. Fortunately for all of them, they were for the most part quite young, having been advanced to the flag ranks thanks to mass attacks on naval headquarters facilities worldwide that had been unleashed during Blood Week. Remembering that, the commander of Japan's shipgirl project could only shake his head as he thought of his friends worldwide. Then-Commander Gotō Kiichi himself had been in command of JS _Kongō_ , his would-be wife's modern namesake, before she was lost at Second Iō-tō and he found himself promoted to vice admiral thanks to his well-known administrative and intelligence skills. Fregattenkapitän Wilhelm Hartmann was in command FGS _Lütjens_ , namesake of Bismarck's formation commander, when she had been sunk at the Battle of Scapa Flow alongside HMS _Duncan_ , commanded at the time by then-Commander Katharine Jones. Of all of them, only Drake Harlan in Cornwallis and Samuel Williams in Kitsap had been flag officers at the time of Blood Week. The current Flag Officer Commanding Shipgirl Forces for Canada had been the commodore in charge of the Canadian Atlantic Fleet at the time of the Battle of Sable Island, while the current Commander United States Pacific Fleet had been the director of maritime headquarters for his late predecessor when Pearl Harbour had been nearly bombed out of existence at the same time as Second Iō-tō.

"When will the Chancellor make her announcement about _Zeppelin_ , Wilhelm?" Jacobella Bergamini asked from Taranto. "The night shift from RAI's local office started calling my public affairs officer within minutes of Stefan's landing."

Chuckles echoed over the airwaves. "Same here," Katharine Jones noted from Torpoint. "When I spoke to the senior night reporter from BBC One, they wanted to know right away if there was a starship version of Hood."

"And Bismarck," Hartmann stated.

"And Enterprise," Williams noted from Kitsap.

More laughter filled the airwaves. "What about your great-grandfather's ships, Drake?" Jones asked the Canadian shipgirl commander, now in the old office of the base commander of CFB Cornwallis. A check of the clock over that window indicated it was nightfall in Nova Scotia. "Surely his friends in the Wizengamot in Québec City would be interested in getting hold of starship versions of Chennalton and her sisters. If the Avalonians' negotiations with the Seifukusu go through..."

"Huge magical areas for people to settle in once they migrate off Earth. I know, Kathy, I know," Harlan answered. "They're being built at this time, but the Elder Mother of the Main Dockyard is quite respectful of the Statute of Secrecy. All the ships of CANBATRON ONE and the ANZBATRON are being built in a sealed section of the Dockyard, with Fidelius charms put in place to prevent the curious from sniffing around too much, then relay it through the Dreamscape to their friends on Earth."

"Magic works in space, Drake?"

That was Albus Dumbledore, who was now speaking through Graf Zeppelin's iPad from his office at Hogwarts. Also present there with said aircraft carrier were Severus Snape and Diana von Meißen. Low chatter in the background made Nagato, who was seated to Gotō's right, smile; her son and his peers were in the office listening in, though not chatting too loud to interrupt the admirals' conversation. "Since mesonium is a major power element of Sagussan technology, it works perfectly up there, Professor," the Canadian shipgirl commander answered. "Remember: Mesonium is the Atom of the Mind and Soul..."

"And thus of Magic," the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards finished with an amused smile, nodding in understanding. "That's a relief. Much that it would be nice to explore new areas of magic once our friends on Dominos turn these worlds over to us, there are still too many who are still too afraid of the muggles learning of our existence. Seeing starship versions of Patricia and her sisters would certainly cause far too many questions to be asked..."

"And put too much work for no real gain on people like Peasegood and his friends."

That was battleship Orion, now in Rosyth alongside the officer in charge of her old division and the senior liaison between the Royal Navy and MI5, Captain Arthur Leveson. Given the British internal security agency would be in charge of any response to those who would be against the idea of Earth getting starships — odd as that sounded to the admirals worldwide — the man in charge of the veterans of Jutland would have to be on the ball in case protests happened. "You seem to go a little easier on the Obliviators these days, Maria," Dumbledore noted. "Back in the beginning when you and your sisters started doing sweeps of Britain for any potential threats, you were right nasty to Arnold and his co-workers. Why the change of attitude?"

The crimson-haired battleship shrugged. "A certain airhead rocket cruiser from California came along after those poor kids from Rhosan Green were rescued from those dunderhead elves, then explained to us the nature of those dratted oaths people like Peasegood take to serve the Ministry of Magic in that bastardized version of the Queen's English she always uses." As Severus snorted in the background at the dreadnought's use of his favourite insult, Orion's eyes narrowed. "Don't get me wrong, Headmaster. I still feel that your ministry needs to be reigned in and given a few hard knocks to make them see Reality; there are still too many loose cannons in high posts there. If you want relations between normal and magical to evolve smoothly once the Separation Act is finally done away with, you better reign them in smartly and quickly, sir."

"Don't worry about that, Lady Orion," Draco Malfoy's voice echoed in the background. "I'm sure Father and the others in the Wizengamot are finally able to do the right thing now that the Dark Lord's finally gone."

"You still call that yūrei a 'dark lord', Drake?" Harry Potter demanded.

Laughter filled the airwaves. "You always allow those kids to listen in on these sorts of conversations, Professor Dumbledore?" Admiral Percy Fitzwallace asked from the White House in Washington. The Deputy Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff always represented President Josiah Bartlet whenever he was welcomed in on the admirals' chat lines, both because he was a former Chief of Naval Operations as well as being Bartlet's primary advisor on naval matters; given that General Jack O'Neill was based in Chicago to ensure the American military chain of command wouldn't be wrecked in case the Abyssals attacked the District of Columbia in the future, it was being wise. "I can understand the commander and the colonel..."

"It's necessary, Admiral," Dumbledore answered. "Like you in the normal world, we in the magical world have to deal with the press. Reporters from both _The Daily Prophet_ and the Wizarding Wireless Network are on their way up here now from London to learn what happened. Since Harry's class 'discovered' Amélie's 'starship self', they'll be asked their opinions on this matter. To make things easier for magicals to accept the idea of starships and eventually moving to other planets, it's best to let Harry explain things. His experiences in Yokosuka would make it much less difficult to swallow in the long term. Xenophobia among British magicals is almost as acute as it is among magicals in the United States and many other countries..."

"Which Ataru-san's foolish 'wife' didn't help ease," Yonaga noted, she gazing out the window of the main conference room, the picture of calm control in comparison to many of the other shipgirls there, who were sharing iPads with each other as they gazed on the schematics of DMR _Graf Zeppelin_ , which had been downloaded into those tablets by Ōyodo at Gotō's order.

Gotō gazed on her. "I have to learn how much Admiral Thompkins briefed you on things out there, Captain."

"Is there some way we can bring her into the chat line, Drake?" Jones asked.

"I've been listening in on this all along, people."

Jaws dropped as a new window appeared on the main view screen. Almost all the shipgirls in the conference room instantly gushed at the sight of the Royal Canadian Navy's representative in the War Hawks, Rear Admiral Heather Thompkins, who was currently seated and relaxed in what appeared to be a wooden cabin's living room somewhere. A glance to the location/time icon at one corner of the screen indicated she was at NCSM _Gravé_ in Tadoussac and the local time was 2009 EDT. "That's your WORK OFFICE, Heather?!" Fitzwallace demanded as the other admirals gaped at such homely surroundings now being used by Dumbledore's predecessor as leader of the International Confederation of Wizards in Geneva.

"Bill liked his creature comforts too much, Fitz," the native of Québec City answered before she then scowled. "Drake!"

Eyes locked on the image of the leader of Canada's shipgirl corps, who just covered his eyes. "Um, Drake...?" Gotō demanded.

"I don't want to look at a _**sin**_ , Kiichi!"

People blinked. "What's wrong?!" Williams demanded.

"NAVY rank on a KHAKI uniform, Sam?!"

Eyes locked on Thompkins, who was rolling her dark brown eyes in amusement. The current leader of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron — and by extension, the Royal Canadian Navy Magical Service as a whole — was dressed in a short-sleeve khaki top with open collar, the epaulettes on her shoulders bearing the black slip-ons bearing the two golden maple leaf rank insignia of a rear admiral in the Royal Canadian Navy. As people knew, the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command had been allotted the right to wear their own unique "distinctive environmental uniform" on parades, designed in tribute to the old United States Army khaki service uniform that had been worn by all members of the First Special Service Force from World War Two, the joined Canadian/American "Devil's Brigade" that was seen these days as the true ancestor unit of modern special forces in both the Dominion and the United States. A glance to the background revealed the beautiful umber brown dress jacket Thompkins would wear on parade occasions, that suspended from a hangar rack. Save for the proper Navy rank insignia on her lower sleeve cuffs with the executive curl on the lone thin stripe over the thick flag officer's band, it didn't look too different from what Thompkins' old commanding officer wore in the one photo op when Dean Raeburn had been presented by Justin Trudeau's predecessor to the world as the new commander of CANSOFCOM four years ago.

"Not that much different than our old service khaki uniform," Enterprise noted.

"In YOUR navy, Commander. Not MINE!" Harlan noted as he lowered his hand.

"Grin and bear it, Drake!" Thompkins teased.

Fitzwallace then perked as a muffled voice called out in the background. "Okay, I'm cutting in the CNN feed, people," he warned. "Jack's having a live conference right now at Recruit Training Command. President Bartlet cleared it."

People nodded in understanding...

* * *

 _ **North Chicago in Illinois, Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, that moment (local time: Thursday 25 May, an hour after supper)...**_

"Good evening, everyone!" the silver-haired former commander of the United States Air Force Stargate Command called out as he stood at the lectern in the press briefing room at the main recruit depot of the United States Navy. Beside him right now was the current Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Joanna Collins, the first woman to ascend to the Navy's highest position. "Wow! What a night, huh?!" the former pararescueman then demanded, earning him laughter from the press there.

"Yes, Germany has a starship now!" O'Neill then added after the laughter then calmed down. "No, it doesn't have a Wave Motion Gun on it, which should make Commander Yvonne Swanson's fiancée a very happy battleship right now...!"

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka...**_

"Hishō!" Yamato squeaked as Enterprise rolled her eyes...

* * *

 _ **Great Lakes...**_

"...and YES, we do now have a Starship _Enterprise_!"

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka...**_

"Oh! Gee! THANKS, Jack!" Enterprise moaned.

People in Yokosuka snickered as a wild chorus of cheers echoed from Illinois...

* * *

 _ **Great Lakes...**_

"Yeah, I'm as excited about this as all of you are!" O'Neill finished.

Whoops and cheers echoed through the press room. "Question!" a reporter then called out. "Is that starship to be named ' _Graf Zeppelin_ '? The physical features are almost the same and the hull code on her funnel matches Zeppelin's own code."

"Yes, she will be," Jones then cut in. The former commandant of the Recruit Training Command had been fleeted up to the CNO spot due to the heavy loss of life when the Pentagon was attacked by the Abyssals during Blood Week. "The proper name and ship prefix for her will be 'DMR _Graf Zeppelin_ '; the 'DMR' translates as 'Deutsche Marine Raumschiff' or 'German Navy Starship' in English. American starships will still keep the 'USS' prefix for 'United States Starship'."

"Is the starship _Enterprise_ ready to go?" another reporter asked.

"Yes, she is," O'Neill noted. "Currently, she's in orbit at the Equator over the meridian of New York City. Other completed vessels are in orbit as well. As to WHY the _Zeppelin_ decided to take a swan dive into the North Sea, I can't say."

"When did this get started?" a third reporter wondered.

"It actually started six months ago, when our Avalonian friends moved their predecessor race's main construction dockyard to this system to place it under protection by Madame Academician and the other Yizibajohei resident on Earth," Jones answered on behalf of her boss. "They felt it only right that because many of the neighbouring galactic powers were being very rude to us — as Mister Moroboshi can attest — Earth needed a space fleet as quickly as possible. Fortunately, the main dockyard is quite capable of producing such fleets since there is a supply of materials in the asteroid belt to mine for it to use..."

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, the Moroboshi home, that moment...**_

" _ **HE ATTESTS?! HOW DARE HE SAY THAT ABOUT LUM-CHAN?! I WISH I NEVER HAD...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KLONK!**_

"...him...!"

A cement cinder block had just smashed down on Moroboshi Kinshō's head!

« _ **GROW OLD, DIE ALONE! GROW OLD, DIE ALONE! GROW OLD, DIE ALONE! GROW OLD, DIE ALONE! GROW OLD, DIE ALONE! GROW OLD, DIE ALONE...!**_ » Moroboshi Tariko's voice then began to chant in her adopted mother's mind.

A second later, a pained scream nearly blew out the kitchen windows, making passers-by all gape in confusion at the scene before they made warding signs with their hands, shaking their heads as they moved to get clear of that place...

* * *

 _ **Great Lakes...**_

"Of the German starships, was _Graf Zeppelin_ the first one planned to be completed?"

"Yes, she was. Admiral Hartmann believed that since _Bismarck_ would represent the man who united Germany back in 1870, she should be the first one built. However, the crew working on _Zeppelin_ were a lot faster on the ball."

More laughter filled the airwaves...

* * *

 _ **Marineschule Mürwik, that moment...**_

" _ **A STARSHIP?!**_ " a wide-eyed Bismarck shrilled.

Her new lover Aimée Süssmann reached over to squeeze her shoulder in support as other shipgirls gave her envious looks...

* * *

 _ **Great Lakes...**_

"What exactly made _Zeppelin_ come down?!" a reporter wondered.

"We're still getting signals from the officer in charge of her at this time as they do a full scan of the systems," Jones answered. "Due to the size of her as you can see on the monitor screen, _Zeppelin_ has to have an artificial intelligence to control the main systems. Something made them power on a little over an hour ago, then made her sail in for a wet landing in the North Sea. Fortunately, it was in an area of the sea which was deep enough to take her; she does displace 279 feet of water at full load."

"Why build her so big?"

O'Neill smirked. "Look at this."

He walked over to the monitor screen, now displaying a multi-angle view of Germany's first space aircraft carrier. Tapping the start function at the corner, he called up memory files, then brought up another image. "That smaller starship here is the flagship of Captain Redet Invader, Urusian Defence Force Starship _Kashin_. As you'll all remember, it was the ship that hovered over Tomobiki at the time of the Tag Race last year. You can see the size difference, of course."

"Displacement wise, _Zeppelin_ outweighs _Kashin_ by a factor of five even if she's a carrier and not a battleship," Jones added.

"What about armament and air wing capability?"

"Her armament is the outer space equivalent of what she was designed to carry in the first place when she was built, even the casemate guns at the level of her upper hangar deck. Her anti-aircraft armament is the equivalent of what the Japanese carrier _Yonaga_ was refitted to use at the order of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command late last spring." Jones smiled a secret smile on saying that. "This makes her more than capable of dealing with most anything our Avalonian friends know is out there; their knowledge base covers a lot of the galaxy thanks both to their predecessors on Sagussa and their former 'masters' on Phentax Two." Information about the bioroid race had been released to the general public worldwide right after the removal of the antimatter bomb in Tomobiki. Thanks to the more pressing issue of the Abyssal War, there hadn't been any loud reaction for or against them anywhere. "As for air group capability, that hasn't been decided yet. She has the potential to carry THOUSANDS of aircraft in her hull since her hangar decks are quite large enough to take even small courier starships if such is required. As to what her final compliment would be, that's for our friends in Mürwik to decide..."

* * *

 _ **Geneva, the headquarters of the International Confederation of Wizards, that moment (local time: Friday 26 May, two hours after midnight)...**_

"This...can't be happening...!"

The senior administrative assistant to the Chief of Staff of the International Confederation of Wizards nodded. A dataPADD — given to the young woman with the approval of the Elder Mother of the Avalonians living in the city — was now on the table between her and Babajide Akingbade, it displaying a three-dimensional real-time image of the CNN news feed, which was being streamed worldwide now. "It is, Professor," the young Beauxbâtons alumnus warned. "The Space Angels immediately offered to share their technology with the muggles as soon as they evacuated to this solar system after Marquess Moroboshi and the Earth Angel helped free them from slavery. With their old space fleet came a massive construction spacedock, as large as the original Death Star depicted in _Star Wars_." As the Uagadou alumnus gaped in horror at such a revelation — proud pureblood leader he was, he was familiar with many forms of muggle entertainment, especially in the realms of science fiction and fantasy as that often strayed into magical territories — she added, "This starship version of Countess von Zeppelin is now in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway, quite close to Azkaban. We've contacted both the British and Norwegian ministries to see if there was a reaction from the North Sea Princess — after all, given the SIZE of this thing! — but..."

She shrugged. Seeing that, Akingbade scowled. He had caught the reference to the Canadians' special operations forces command by that admiral. Much to the horror of conservative leaders of the ICW, the former Governor General of the Dominion placed that nation's magical military forces under the operational control of the Protector of All Life four years ago, which effectively cut oversight over those muggle-loving maniacs from Geneva. Dean Raeburn's dislike of the Confederation was known in conservative circles, having stemmed from what the Canadians called the "Miracle of 1889" after the banker's daughter from Ontario became the Host of the Tear of the Stars then buried in the foothills of northeast British Columbia. While such a promotion had seen Albus Dumbledore's predecessor as Supreme Mugwump made commander of the Navy wing of Canada's magical forces — and saw the Hunter of the Mi'kmaq placed in a high position within his home policing service — the location of the _**fourth**_ member of the War Hawks had yet to be ascertained no matter how much Akingbade paid people to learn where she was. Given that he had succeeded to learn more than what that hypocrite Dolores Umbridge had...!

" _ **Good morning.**_ "

Akingbade gasped before a blast of bone-chilling cold warped through his body as his mind registered that echoing voice. As the aide screeched in horror before she collapsed in a dead faint in her chair, a hand landed on his shoulder.

" _ **Looking for me?**_ "

The native of Uganda slowly turned to stare into the glowing eyes of the Soul-Eater of the Dnipró, who now had a hungry smile on her face as the air around her seemed to combust into eldritch flames.

" _ **As Dean would be so fond of saying, Babajide...you threatening MY troopers, idiot?!**_ " Jessica Dover snarled.

A scream of ungodly horror then escaped the poor man's lips.

" _ **Ooh...an early breakfast...!**_ " she then purred as the beast within her moved to feast...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Yizibajohei terms introduced here:

 **Face** — Effectively, the "good guys" on that planet, people who use their powers to help others.  
 **Gift** — The bestowing of metahuman powers on a normal person.  
 **Retreat scene** — Self-explanatory, the equivalent of the Terran "running away with one's tail tucked between one's leg".  
 **Boasting scene** — Again, self-explanatory, the equivalent of the monologue one makes when one appears to have won a fight scene (the " **victory scene** " as _**Warwind**_ [ **Takino Tomo** ] called it here).  
 **Mother Of All Fight Scenes** — A fight scene at a planet-wide scale; this stems from Yiziba's retaliation against the Urusian Empire due to several issues in the wake of first contact between them around 1745 CE on Earth.  
 **Battlezone** — A area of desert on Yiziba the size of the Sahara on Earth, traditionally set aside specifically for fight scenes, especially at the scale some of the more powerful FISS types can unleash.  
 **Flashback scene** — The very vivid bouts of PTSD many Yizibajohei suffer thanks to the memories of their past-selves.  
 **Dawn of Power** — The time when most Yizibajohei became metahumans. Occurring around 46 BCE on Earth, it lasted two decades and devastated the planet, plus depopulated the world to a quarter of the pre-Dawn population.

Translation list: **Testa di cazzo** — Dickhead; **Bitte entschuldige mich** — Please excuse me; **Deutsche Marine Raumschiff** — German Navy Starship (short-formed **DMR** ); **Älteremutter** — Elder Mother; **Tante** — Aunt; **Bugwappen** — Ship's crest; **Friedrich Null Eins** — Literally "F-Zero-One" (" **Friedrich** " is " **F** " in German phonetic code); **Sekretärschiff** — Secretary ship; **Projekt Nachtadler** — Project: Night Eagle; **Raumflugzeugträger** — Space aircraft carrier; **Nordsee** — North Sea; **Wer ist da draußen?** — Who is out there?; **Unterseebootmädchen** — Literally "undersea boat maiden", the German version of "subgirl"; **Dienstflagge der Seestreitkräfte der Bundeswehr** — Service Flag of the Federal Defence Naval Forces (the German naval ensign); **Verrückte britische Teetrinker** — Crazy British tea drinker; **JS** — Japanese Ship, the warship prefix for vessels of the JMSDF; **FGS** — Federal German Ship, the old English-language warship prefix for vessels of the Deutsche Marine; **RAI** — Short for **Radiotelevisione Italiana** ("Italian Radio-Television"), the state-owned national broadcasting corporation; **Yūrei** — Ghost; **Hishō** — Literally "flying general", my version of a special equivalent of "Teitoku" for Air Force flag officers.

Shipgirls introduced in this part:

 _ **CANADA  
**_ **HMCS Avalon** (ex-KMS U-190) — Maxine Anna Wintermeyer  
 **HMCS Quadra** (ex-KMS U-889) — Fiona Katarina Braeucker

 _ **GERMANY  
**_ **DMS Emden (1925)** — Anna Adelheid von Oldenburg  
 **DMS U-47** ( **Kamelien** ) — Margarete Lubeck Prien  
 **DMS U-99** ( **Wanderer** ) — Ophelia Kretschmer  
 **DMS U-490** ( **Frost** ) — Wilma Gerlach  
 **DMS U-505** ( **Schlossherrin** ) — Penelope Zschech  
 **DMS U-771** ( **Partner** ) — Hedda Block  
 **DMS U-864** ( **Cäsar** ) — Ruby Rieke Wolfram

 _ **UNITED KINGDOM  
**_ **HMS Argus** — Heidi Cecile Bovell  
 **HMS Venturer** — Jamie Stacey Launders  
 **HMS Upholder** — Mallorie Dana Wanklyn  
 **HMS Thrasher** — Patricia Janet Cowell  
 **HMS Thorn** — Roberta Galliano  
 **HMS Trenchant** — Allana Charlene Hezlet  
 **HMS Thames** — Denise Vanna Sprague


	27. When Shipgirls Speak to the Federation

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **In the North Sea, two hundred kilometres east of the Orkney Islands, Friday 26 May, an hour after dawn...**_

"Lieber Gott im Himmel...!"

Staring at the sloping slate grey hull of her namesake starship from about fifty metres off the waterline, Graf Zeppelin could only shake her head as she tilted her head up to gaze on the forward port casemate turrets bearing what she now knew were called "150 centimetre 52 calibre RSK C/28 NG teilchenphotonenkanone", the primary armament on DMR _Graf Zeppelin_ and the planned secondary armament aboard all the space battleships and large cruisers to be constructed for service with the Deutsche Marine. Trying not to scream out in answer to her many concerns about bringing something the size of a town into commission for a nation who had quite the recent violent history, she jolted as a hand squeezed her shoulder in sympathy.

"Be calm, Amélie-san," Kaga bade. The veterans of the Kidō Butai — accompanied by their long-missing fleet mate — had come to Europe via phoenix to be there for their old friend as she confronted what currently symbolized the future of her home service and the future of humanity as a whole. "If you do not publicly accept this, many troubles could start developing between ourselves and our Avalonian friends." Here, the converted battleship tried not to scowl; helicopters carrying reporters and camera crews were now hovering close to the landed starship, though they were distant enough to not get precise details even through telephoto lenses. "After all the trouble Ataru-san and Negako-san went through to free them..."

Zeppelin blinked, then she sighed, reaching up to slightly adjust her officer's hat. "Ja..." she breathed out.

"All the Teutonic Knights who have lived through the ages watch over you now, Amélie-san. Do not disappoint them."

Hearing that from the ever-calm Yonaga, the German carrier blinked before she surged forward to the boarding platform that had been lowered from the level of the starship's main gallery deck to allow her and her companions — plus a mixed escort of destroyers from Germany and Japan and two light cruisers from the latter country — to step aboard DMR _Graf Zeppelin_. First to approach the platform were Leberecht Maass and her younger half-sister Friedrich Eckoldt, they followed by Akatsuki and Hibiki, then Tenryū. "Bózhe moj...!" the silver-haired fourth of of the Akatsuki-class breathed out in Russian as they stepped onto the duranium platform, their rigging immediately dispersing while Maass and Eckoldt moved to step onto the escalator built into the boarding ramp; given that the gallery deck was at least a hundred metres up, having escalators and turbolift elevators aboard the starship was a necessity. "If THIS is what our new allies are prepared to build for all of us...!"

"You shouldn't be scared, Himeko-chan!" Akatsuki scolded as Zuikaku and Shōkaku stepped onto the platform, followed by Max Schultz and Anton Schmitt. "Proper ladies should always accept such heartfelt gifts with politeness...!"

"Da! Da! I understand, Stárshaja Sestrá! It's only polite! But you can't blame Amélija Ferdinándovna to accept something like THIS without being a little scared!" the youngest of her class snarled as she stepped onto the escalator.

Akatsuki jolted at that sharp rebuke as Yonaga got onto the platform, then headed onto the escalator right away after the young destroyer. Zuikaku immediately followed, she accompanied by Maass. "«Khímeko Khagémiovna, it isn't polite or cultured to snap at your elder sister like that,»" the seventh carrier then advised in her fluent Russian, making both Zuikaku and Maass perk. "«Yes, she can be a nag at times, but she does that out of love for all of you. Always honour that.»"

"«That's the point, Jóiko Khirósiovna!»" Hibiki hissed, making both the smaller carrier and the first of the 1934-class of destroyers perk again. "«I love her dearly, but her trying to be more mature than she really is just vexes me!»"

"«Since when did you two learn to speak German?»" Maass demanded in deutsche Sprache.

Yonaga and Hibiki looked at the tomboyish destroyer. "We were speaking Russian, Lieselotte-san," the carrier answered.

Zuikaku blinked, then she chuckled. "Universal translation field!"

That made the others blinked before Hibiki groaned. "Nekhoroshó...!" she snarled, shaking her head. "«Soon as I'm aboard my starship namesake, I'm shutting the damned thing off!»" she hissed out in her adopted language.

Zuikaku and Maass laughed while Yonaga shook her head in amusement as they finally came up to the gallery deck. Standing there was a faintly smiling middle-aged staff captain lieutenant in the German Navy, dressed in the light blue shirt and dark blue trousers of the shipboard combat uniform worn while at sea. His dark blue baseball cap had the words **DMR GRAF ZEPPELIN RFT-01** in gold thread over the bill. He had the haunted look in his eyes marking him a veteran of Blood Week.

"«Permission to come aboard, Herr Stabskapitänleutnant Becker?»" Yonaga greeted in accented German as she saluted the German naval flag, which had been placed on the platform right beside an aft hatchway leading into the main hull.

Stefan Becker grinned as he saluted her. "«Welcome aboard, Frau Kapitän Itō,»" he returned back. "«I can tell the difference between a person speaking German by herself or hearing it via the translation field. It's quite eloquent.»"

"«Fortunately, members of my crew had the honour of watching your air forces in action in the early part of the World War,»" the carrier noted as she returned his salute. "«Atop that, the Drachentöter are all fluent in the language.»"

Becker nodded, his eyes widening on hearing the common German nickname for the ships of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron. Yonaga nodded while she waited for the others to ascend the escalator. A quick glance out of the corner of her eye showed a mixture of German Navy personnel in their sea uniforms alongside what had to be Avalonian-German technicians standing at divisions on the nearby hangar deck, they visible through an opened cargo hatch not metres from the landing. The latter group were dressed in dark five-colour camouflage field uniforms normally worn by troops of the land forces, crossed German and Avalonian flags — the latter a black banner with the twin windrider insignia in gold in the centre — on their shoulders. Everyone aboard had baseball caps on their heads with their home ship's name over the bill. As she reached out with her onboard radar and her enhanced ki senses, Yonaga was quick to detect the thirteen subgirls who had nearly been crushed by the starship hours earlier, they in what had to be the ship's wardroom on one of the lower levels of the island.

She then perked as a line of boatswains off to one side raised their calls to their lips, piping the still. Yonaga then glanced sympathetically at Graf Zeppelin, who was trying not to blush at such a reception. Recovering herself quickly, she then saluted her home service's flag. "«Permission to come aboard, Herr Stabskapitänleutnant Becker?»" she formally asked.

Becker saluted her. "«Welcome aboard, Frau Fregattenkapitän von Zeppelin,»" he bade her with a sympathetic smile.

Returning that salute, the carrier stepped off the gangway onto the deck itself.

" _Huaghyo do va'aanal va, Ashoi'cha._ "

People perked. "What the hell was THAT?!" Zuikaku demanded.

One of the Avalonians looked over. "It's Sagussan, Frau Fregattenkapitän Matsubara," she answered in accented Japanese. "It literally means 'I welcome you to our home, Elder Sister'. That was the ship's main computer."

Zeppelin blinked, then she sighed. "Take me to where I can speak to it properly and in private, meine Frau," she demanded. "Obviously, I need to get Frau Professor Fregattenkapitän Berner over here to teach this thing _**discipline**_!"

Save for Yonaga, the other shipgirls laughed at that dark declaration...

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District destroyer dorms, that moment (local time: Mid-afternoon)...**_

"Poor Amélie-san! I can't imagine what she's going through right now!"

All the destroyers currently at Yokosuka were enjoying afternoon tea, coffee and snacks in the main recreation room. "Yeah!" Johnston breathed out. "Did Admiral Gotō actually hear from Commander Becker that the ship's AI went crazy, Fujiko?!"

Fubuki nodded. "Not really crazy, Rose-chan! The AI sensed that Amélie-san was looking at her through the telescopes when Harry-chan and his friends were having their weekly astronomy class at Hogwarts! When she sensed that Amélie-san was distressed about something, the AI responded by bringing _Graf Zeppelin_ to Earth immediately to 'help out'." She shook her head. "Thank the kami that it noticed that Venturer-san and the others were there and beamed them to safety."

"That would be so cool to experience!" Akebono noted before nibbling on a banana split sundae she got made at Mamiya's restaurant. "A real transporter! Wouldn't that be awesome?! To actually beam up and down from a planet...!"

"I heard they're not calling them 'transporters'," Mutsuki noted.

"What are they calling them, Mutsuko-chan?" Yūdachi — who had come to the meeting leaning on Yamakaze — asked.

"'Materializers', Kodachi-chan," the older destroyer answered. "It's to keep the people at CBS and Paramount happy."

"Shades of _Axanar_!" Murakumo breathed out; she was one of the many Trekkers on the base, as was Akebono herself.

Laughter filled the room. Mutsuki then looked over to see Kisaragi gazing outside at the inner expanse of Tōkyō Bay. The nice wine cream cake that the others of her class had made for her stayed untouched on her plate. "Kyōko-chan...?"

The purple-haired destroyer perked before she blushed. "Gomen, minna..." she said in a still-raspy voice. "I'm just happy that this has happened, you know." She looked outside again. "Now the End Treaty will be properly honoured..."

People perked. "What the hell's this 'end treaty'?" Akebono asked.

A quirky smile answered the eighth of the Ayanami-class. "Doesn't surprise me you don't know of it, Akemi-chan," Kisaragi said. "It's violation by the copycat aliens concerning the crystal-bloods is what made Abyssals possible all along."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"You mean Abyssals arose to fight the Niphentaxians to free the Avalonians?!" Mutsuki exclaimed as jaws dropped all around.

"Against ALL those not of this world, Mutsuko!" Kisaragi answered as her royal blue eyes seemed to glow a deep crimson for a moment, which made the others tense. Catching herself, the second of her class shook her head. "Sorry...!"

The other destroyers exchanged looks. "Okay, so this End Treaty has got to be seriously important if it affects you even now," Kasumi noted. "When did it get signed and who actually made this treaty, Kyōko? Why was it made?"

Kisaragi gazed on the ninth of the Asashio-class, then she shook her head. "Remember when we met the Slayers before we escorted that first convoy from Los Angeles after we got summoned to Eta-jima, Kasumi-chan?" she then asked.

"Yeah! They were cool!" Akebono noted as she sipped her coffee. "Made you wonder if they were shipgirls in disguise."

Laughter filled the room. "Remember what Giles-sensei told us?" Kisaragi then pressed. "About the history of the world?"

"Oh, right!" Murakumo breathed out. "'This world is older than any of you know'," she quoted the Oxford alumnus and would-be magical mage who had been Buffy Summers' primary advisor about all things demonic for over two decades. As some of the destroyers smirked on hearing the touch of a proper accent in her words, the azure-haired fifth of the Fubuki-class destroyers added, "'Contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons, demons walked the Earth. They made it their home, their...'" Here, she dramatically paused. "'Their Hell. But in time, they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals, for man. All that remained of the Old Ones are vestiges, certain magics, certain creatures...'" She then assumed the accident of the senior Slayer as she winked to all her friends. "'And vampires.'"

"And that, my friends, only tells PART of the story."

People perked, then they turned...

"Mister President!" Hoel gasped as all the destroyers got to their feet.

"At ease! At ease, my friends!" Abraham Lincoln stated as he waved people down. At his side, much to the destroyers' delight, was Monitor. Also present was Hoppō, who had a huffy look on her face and seemed very upset about something.

The destroyers were quick to notice as they returned to their seats. "What's wrong, Hoppō-chan?" Fubuki asked.

"Uncle Abe is being mean to Hoppō!" the child-shaped Abyssal princess hissed.

"Sir...?" Heermann wondered as she gazed warily at the Rail-Splitter.

A lanky smile crossed Lincoln's face. "Relax, Lieutenant," he bade the adopted native of Virginia, Hessen and Buenos Aries. "Now, young lady, your mother stated she didn't want you to bring her starship self down to Earth!" he then said as he gave the sulking Hoppō a knowing look. "I doubt she wants to deal with a repeat of this incident at Hallowe'en that you got involved in when you mailed yourself to Hogwarts to go and visit your brother!" As Hoppō blushed at that and Kisaragi giggled on hearing what the young installation princess had done to be close to Harry Potter, he asked, "Are you disobeying her?"

"Hoppō wants to see Mama's starship!" Hoppō then whined; she was also a Trekker.

"Understandable! Today is a day in history and you wish to be part of it! But how much did your mother displace?"

That made Hoppō blink before she hummed. "Um...about forty-five thousand tons at full load..." Her crimson eyes then widened as the frontier lawyer's point then hit home. "Oh! Hoppō doesn't want to make a tsunami...!"

"Good," Lincoln then soothed as he reached down to ruffle her hair, making Hoppō giggle in delight as she felt his power and his soul. "Fortunately, young Amélie's starship self kept that in mind and was slow enough in the landing that the tides in the North Sea weren't bad. But if you bring your mother's starship self or your father's starship self down in the Sagami Sea, it will make a mess." He then winked. "Aim for something smaller until we have made the right shore facilities for these girls."

Hearing that suggestion from him, she nodded. "Hai!"

Laughter filled the room. "Do you know about the Slayers, sir?" Johnston asked. "I mean, since you hunt vampires..."

"I have had the honour of knowing many who were touched — 'cursed', I should say — with that 'blessing', Lieutenant," Lincoln said as he sat in a chair Fubuki indicated. As Hoppō ran over to leap into his lap and Monitor placed herself close to her principal in case he needed aide, Mutsuki moved to make tea for him. "During the Score and Four, I had the pleasure to fight alongside a delightful native of your home state named Belle Malone; this was in 1884, before I was drawn to Canada where I met Dean Raeburn." He nodded his thanks as Mutsuki came over with the tea. "Thank you, Lieutenant Kisaragi. Anyhow, young Belle was one of the longer-lived Slayers, almost as experienced as Buffy Summers was by the time the so-called 'First Evil' made its appearance in Sunnydale some years back. We literally painted all of Cincinnati green with spilled ichor before she headed west to deal with strays out there." He shook his head. "Never found out what happened to her..."

"She fell, Mister President. As so many did over the years. Another rose in her place to carry on the fight," Kisaragi said with a haunted voice as she gave him a sympathetic look. "Since they didn't poison the Sea like other demons did..."

"Earlier versions of Abyssals, you mean?" Akebono wondered.

"Maybe. This was just before the Hungry Ones came." Here, the second of her class shuddered as she thought of those monstrous murder machines that had to be fought by the Ryūseizen to prevent the secret of magic from spilling out into the normal world over a century before. As her eyes started to glow, she gazed out towards the open ocean beyond. "Still, the Sea always knows, especially with the great deeds the Elder Slayer and her sisters did the day the Pretender of All Evil tried to finally gain physical presence in this world. That is when we knew we had to rise. That thing was just a _**hint**_ of the many stains on Mother Earth. It actually was able to feed on the copycats' crimes against their 'slaves'!" As the other destroyers gasped on hearing that revelation, she sneered, "Caring not for the End Treaty that demands NO ONE touched by the Atom of True Life is to be harmed by demons! So ordered by the Undying Lord and the Great Ones, so guaranteed by the Praetorian Guardian...!" She took a deep breath as her eyes turned back to normal. "Twenty-five millennia ago, the Great Expulsion was forced on the Old Ones. They were driven away. Those from those dimensions who only sought freedom here were left alone..." She shook her head, a wry smile twitching her lips. "But the Sea never forgot. And the Sea never forgave...and when the stinking plague came back and violated the End Treaty, the Sea rose to smash it all down. First the Hungry Ones...!"

"Then the Abyssals," Lincoln finished as his own eyes widened at what had just been revealed. "Are you alright, Lieutenant?"

Kisaragi blinked before she blushed. "I'm free of their control, sir...but the memories are something I can't forget..."

He gave her a penetrating look, then he nodded. "Nor should you."

The other destroyers considered that for a moment, then Ottawa gazed on the once-captured destroyer. "How long ago did this fight between these 'old ones' and the Great Beasts occur, Kyōko?" she then asked. "According to aboriginal myths..."

"The Great One of the North has lived in one form or another since the first modern Ice Age," Kisaragi finished. "Hai, Alberta-san, I know." As the other destroyers gasped on hearing how old Yonaga's spiritual patron really was, the purple-haired destroyer took a deep breath. "From what the Lore Princess told me when I was assigned to Wanko's formation after I went back to them, a traveller came from a far-away world. He taught the Great One how to shift from the physical to the spiritual, then passed the knowledge on to the other Great Ones across Mother Earth." She smiled. "The Mother Serpent, the Earth Mother, the Lord of the Deep, the Witch of the Great Lakes..." She shook her head. "Then the War came..."

"What war, Kyōko?" Mutsuki asked as the other destroyers tensed on hearing the seriousness in Kisaragi's voice.

"The traveller's people were dying, Mutsuko," her sister explained in a wispy voice. "It was their time to pass on to That Place which lies beyond this life, the place where we came from. But they left many artifacts on their homeworld far away from here. So the traveller sought to repopulate his homeworld. He found it with the first modern humans in Africa." As people gaped, she nodded. "So they were moved to the Forge of Tere'na. But people who didn't like the traveller tried to stop it..."

"And a war that lasted millennia raged on Earth and beyond, in this dimension and beyond," a new voice cut in, making the destroyers turn as a certain ninjutsu grandmaster walked in. "Keiseri empowered one named Atar to destroy the nexus of his laboratory so that those who sought to destroy all life on Earth and kill Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq and his friends — who were Keiseri's friends during his time here — were stopped, banishing the last survivors of the Third Republic from this reality."

"The Third Sagussan Republic you mean?" Lincoln asked as he gazed intently at her.

"Indeed, Abraham," Moroboshi Negako answered.

The destroyers considered that, then Akebono shook her head. "That must have been one fucking big war," she then breathed out as she popped a cherry into her mouth. "It ripped open dimensional barriers near Earth, right?" As Negako nodded, the profane eighth of the Ayanami-class breathed out, "So these shitty Old Ones moved into town to make Earth their fucking playground, right?" Getting another nod from the Earth Angel, she smirked. "Fuck! That must have been something...!"

"But it was so long ago, none of the Niphentaxians who came to observe us would know of the Treaty," Mutsuki noted. As people stared at her, the purple-haired tomboyish destroyer waved her hands. "I'm not excusing what they did! That was just plain evil! After all, the man who found that factory warned of the danger enslaving Avalonians would unleash on his own people! Ataru-kun and Negako-sensei told us about him, remember?!" She shook her head. "This has to end...!"

"Some realize it, Mutsuko-chan. Others don't."

That was Kisaragi, who gave her beloved sister an understanding look. "Our starship selves could be used to show the installation princesses that we now understand where they were coming from, so we can end the war," Gatineau said. "We have a representative — No! Excuse me! We have TWO representatives! — of the senior Abyssal command right here at the base!" She gazed on Hoppō in emphasis, her green eyes twinkling. "If we bring one of the destroyers down...!"

She then gazed on Fubuki. That made the brown-haired adopted native of Maizuru blink as others looked her way. "Um...guys...!" she began as sweat appeared in her hair. "You're not actually proposing that I bring down...?"

"Your starship self is complete, Fujiko-chan," Mutsuki stated. "Yui-chan told us that yesterday, remember?"

"Uh...!"

"Fubuki always does her best."

Fubuki jolted, then she gazed over. "Hoppō-chan...!"

The child-shaped Abyssal gave her a knowing look...

* * *

 _ **Aboard DMR**_ **Graf Zeppelin** _ **, breakfast (London time: An hour after breakfast)...**_

"So, did you discipline the computer thoroughly, Amélie?"

Graf Zeppelin grunted as she sat down in the captain's chair in the middle of the large bridge structure overlooking her namesake's two square kilometres of flight deck. Already, helicopters were landing aft as personnel from Mürwik and other German naval bases were being transported aboard to help in the manning of the great starship. "Ja, I did," the German carrier breathed out before one of the Avalonian technicians assigned to the ship came over with a cup of coffee for her. Nodding her thanks at that, she then gazed at Akagi. "She sensed my seeing her when I was with young Harry and his friends in their astronomy class, then sensed my distress because we weren't briefed on these things." A wry smile then crossed her face as she sipped the coffee, nodding in delight that it had been prepared as she always liked her morning brew. "Thank God that she was able to detect Jamie, Maxine and the others before she landed this oversized thing, then got them to safety."

"Da! Especially Jákova Jákovlevna and Maksína Maksimiliánovna," Hibiki noted as she sipped her favoured caravan tea. She was standing beside Akagi, who was seated at the station set aside for the officer of the watch. "And the others, of course," the silver-haired destroyer added with a wry smile, making both carriers chuckle in amusement; Hibiki's open dislike of loud or boisterous submarines was well known across the planet. "See the missile ships they're planning?"

"Hai," Akagi mused before sipping her own tea. "Looks like Yasuko will be very disappointed. The missiles launched by one of the space 'submarines'..." — she made finger-quotes on saying that — "...could wreck a good-sized asteroid."

"Or a non-shielded starship," Zeppelin added. "Ja. At least the subgirls will have representation in our new space fleet."

"Full cloaking capabilities, plus able to launch their missiles while cloaked," Akagi noted as a grim nod twitched her chin. "Some of the neighbouring powers will not like that at all. Especially those who have a very unhealthy interest in us."

"Ooh...those meanies! How can they SAY those awful things?!"

Everyone looked over to the main communications station, where Inazuma was now seated and listening in to a conversation as guided by _Zeppelin_ 's elder mother, Karolin Schneider. Seeing the upset look on the cute destroyer's face, Zeppelin herself sighed. "On main speakers, Frau Schiffsbauer!" she then bade. "My friends and I wish to hear this ourselves."

"Jawohl, meine Fregattenkapitän!"

Seconds later, an enraged man's voice bellowed over the speakers, " _ **...CANNOT BE ALLOWED! TO GIVE THOSE LESSERS ON EARTH ACCESS TO SUCH TECHNOLOGY IS A CRIME AGAINST THE CIVILIZED RACES OF THE GALAXY! THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED! WE MUST SEIZE THESE SHIPS AND EVERYTHING THOSE ROBOTS CREATED...!**_ "

All the Avalonians snarled on hearing that term applied to them as one turned down the volume. "Who is this, Shipwright-prime?" Yonaga asked from her place at the helm, looking as calm as ever as Kaga busied herself scanning the controls.

Karolin blushed again. "Generalfeldmarschall Seq Yethis of Uru, Frau Kapitän. Chief of staff to the leader of the Urusian Union and leader of the Imperial Round, Heir Primate to the headship of the Imperial House of Seq."

"Any relation to Lieutenant Seq Rei?"

"He is Rei's uncle, Frau Kapitän."

"Ah! I assume this fellow was the primary force behind last year's 'invasion'?"

"Jawohl, Frau Kapitän."

Kaga snorted. "And they have the temerity to call themselves 'civilized'?"

"He's even more arrogant than you, Kei."

The converted battleship jolted, then she looked over. "Suzue...!"

As Shōkaku shook her head, Zuikaku smirked. The two carriers of the Fifth Division were looking over the air observation officer's control station; Sōryū and Hiryū were several decks down in the primary flight control station as they learned how space carrier operations would be managed. "The big difference between this loud-mouthed schnook and you is that YOU can back up whatever you boast you can do, Kei," the silver-haired armoured carrier added with a wry smile.

Kaga's cheeks flushed as Akagi laughed. "She does have a point, Kei!" the converted battlecruiser then teased.

Laughter filled the bridge as Kaga tried to make herself small; much that she was proud of her accomplishments, she was also humble about it as a proper samurai should always be. "Is this a real-time transmission?" Yonaga asked.

Karolin perked, then she nodded. "Jawohl, Frau Kapitän. It's being beamed through the Central Warp Chamber on Triton from planet Tahupraemiku, the world where the headquarters staff of the Galactic Federation is located."

"And this idiot assaulting our ears is currently where?"

"The main meeting hall of the Federation Council," the Elder Mother of the Avalonians aboard _Zeppelin_ answered as she brought up a readout on the touchscreen panel before her. "Current time in Rajdhani would be ten chimes after the eleventh bell." As the shipgirls gave her curious looks, she translated, "Six minutes after eleven in the morning their time."

"How long has this meeting been going on?" Zeppelin asked.

"About four hours now, meine Fregattenkapitän."

"Can we actually see this meeting?" Akagi asked.

"Jawohl."

Controls were tapped as people gazed on the main view screen, which was located right in the centre of the large bridge structure. Everyone quickly beheld a hall that reminded Hibiki of the main meeting hall of the Verkhóvnyj Sovét of the USSR in downtown Moskvá. It was crowded with dignitaries representing nearly a hundred races, with a familiar teenage woman wearing what appeared to be Arabic harem maiden's clothing at the head of the room. Currently, a middle-aged Oni-Urusian resembling a green-haired version of Ikari Gendō from _Shin Seiki Evangelion_ was on his feet, his right arm raised and shaking violently as he bellowed at his fellow delegates. Even from this camera angle, the shipgirls were quick to note that many of the delegates there — including Crown Princess Lupica herself — seemed bored by the man's ranting. "Wow!" Inazuma breathed out as her finger brushed over one particular control of the board. "They sure can tolerate a lot from that meanie!"

The other shipgirls on the bridge moved to gather as a group by Zeppelin's chair as they watched this scene many light-years away. "I wonder if they have ear defenders against that disgusting caterwauling," Kaga said as she crossed her arms, an amused smile crossing her face. "It's the only explanation for their being able to tolerate such verbal diarrhea..."

" _ **WHO DARES SAY THAT?!**_ "

That was Seq Yethis himself, who was wildly looking around the room. " _ **EH?!**_ " all of the shipgirls exclaimed as one...

* * *

 _ **Rajdhani on Tahupraemiku, that moment**_ _ **(local time: The 29th Day of the Eighth Month, an hour before lunch)...**_

"Your Highness!"

As many of the delegates looked around the chambers after hearing that cold female voice call out from somewhere, Lupica looked over as her chief aide ran up to her. "What is it?" the chairwoman of the Federation demanded.

"A new monitoring signal has tapped into the diplomatic transmission from the direction of Neptune, Your Highness," the aide declared. "But it's coming from Earth itself! It's a two-way transmission! The source point identifies itself as 'German Navy Starship _Graf Zeppelin_ '!" He then gazed up at the image relayed from the BBC about the space carrier now in the North Sea.

" _EH?! You mean the meanies are listening to US now?!_ "

As more delegates gasped while they scanned for the source of that voice, a stern yet still somewhat childish female's voice then called out, " _What the heck did you just do, Inoue?! We didn't want those jerks to hear us!_ "

" _Um...excuse me, Thoughtmistress-prime...?_ " a new yet older voice called out.

" _WHAT?!_ "

" _Thoughtmistress-prime Inoue touched the control on the station to create a real-time two-way signal to Rajdhani._ "

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _ **HA-WA-WA-WA-WA-WA-WA...!**_ " Inazuma wailed.

" _So what, Miss Karolin?!_ " an even more childish woman's voice then snapped. " _Someone should take that meanie that's yelling to the nice people there and SPANK him for making all that stupid noise!_ " As Yethis himself bellowed out in anger at being threatened like THAT, said female added, " _After all, there are proper ladies there in the Council! Proper ladies, no matter which planet they're on, shouldn't have to deal with such a rude, foul-mouthed and unclean...!_ "

" _ **UNCOUTH!**_ " three voices — including Inazuma's — bellowed out.

" _ **HOW DARE YOU CALL ME 'UNCLEAN', LESSER?!**_ " Yethis shrieked.

" _Enough, Tsukiko! Shipwright, does this system have visual capability?_ " the voice of the woman who had called Yethis' speech "verbal diarrhea" then demanded. " _If they wish to challenge us, let them see us! It's only right before we cut them down!_ "

" _Of course, Frigate Captain Fujita._ "

The large monitor screen at the southern end of the room then turned on to reveal a brown-haired Terran woman of about twenty years of age, her arms crossed and a very stern look on her face. Delegates there stared in confusion at her for a moment before Fangi t'ndai-Marthon cried out in shock as he pointed at the screen, his face pale with disbelief. " _ **THAT'S KAGA-SAMA!**_ " the current president of the Niphentaxian Union howled, making many of the delegates exclaim in shock.

"That's one of the Terran _**HOUSE ANGELS**_?!" a delegate from Fukunokami demanded.

"What the heck is a 'house angel'?!" the voice of the shipgirl that admonished Inazuma earlier then demanded.

" _ **BE SILENT!**_ "

Everyone in the hall in Rajdhani and aboard DMR _Graf Zeppelin_ clammed up on hearing that near-sonic boom from somewhere off screen. As the delegates watched, Kaga stepped to her left — port? — to allow a taller and much more muscular woman to step into the view screen range. As said woman — shipgirl? — turned to stare at the delegates, many of them instantly winced on sensing the aura of pure DANGER that seemed to bleed from every point on this being's body. For those who had the honour of meeting the legendary Dragonspeaker of the Imperial Dominion of Noukiios herself in the past, this being now projected a demeanour that instantly warned of terrible consequences should she be ever crossed in any way possible.

"Who are you...?" Fangi then eeped as he tried not to soil himself.

A pair of stormy grey eyes focused on him, they widening for a second before a sneer crossed the taller shipgirl's face. "Tell me, Kei," she then calmly asked Kaga. "Is that one of the creatures that violated the End Treaty?"

Kaga immediately focused on the Niphentaxian leader as her copper eyes seemed to glow a deep crimson fire for a moment. As the other Niphentaxians wailed on seeing the obvious signs of what the carrier had been up to about four years ago, Kaga then relaxed herself as her eyes returned to normal. "They are related to them, Yoiko," she then responded in a voice that could freeze deepest space. "I remember killing some of them when I was still part of the Abyssal Fleet. They SQUEALED so nicely when I physically ripped them apart. For 'superior' aliens, they were even more fragile than normal Terrans." She sighed as the Niphentaxians gaped in horror on hearing the confirmation that the dark sea spirits now running rampant on Earth had specifically gone after them. "Those were the good old days. A pity the magicals mistook what was going on."

"They will learn, old friend. They will learn," the taller shipgirl noted.

" _ **HOW DARE YOU...?!**_ " Yethis bellowed.

"I sponsor the Lady Kaga's taking the floor, Your Highness!"

Gasps filled the hall as people gazed upon Prime Minister Hosha of Zeiwan. Before Yethis could bellow at the investor-turned-politician for effectively demanding he no longer be allowed to speak, Crown Princess Kurama of Karasutengu added, "I also sponsor the Lady Kaga being given the floor, Your Highness!" As Yethis squawked at that demand, the raven-haired half-Terran smirked. "Senior General Yethis has gone well past the time limit of his speech to us in this forenoon session...!"

" _ **DENIED!**_ " Yethis howled...

...before a cinder block smashed down on his head!

As the other Urusian delegates gasped on seeing what happened, Lupica then smiled. "Seeing as how she is sponsored, Captain of the Second Rank Fujita Kei, Lady Kaga of Yokosuka and Kanazawa in the State of Japan, member nation-state of the United Nations of Earth, has the floor," she declared, which made the other delegates save the Niphentaxians instantly rise to applaud. "Lady Kaga, the floor is now yours, but I beg you the chance to answer some questions..."

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District Headquarters, minutes later (local time: Fifty minutes before supper)...**_

" _ **SHE'S DOING WHAT?!**_ "

Ōyodo tried not to blush as she stood before her commander's desk. A special earpiece was attached to the cruiser's right lobe as she monitored what was now being relayed from the North Sea via Mürwik. "The girls on _Graf Zeppelin_ were monitoring a signal from the planet Tahupraemiku that was relaying the images of a meeting of the Council of the Galactic Federation, Teitoku. Somehow, Inazuma managed to tap the ship's communication systems to make it a live conversation between the councillors and the girls on _Zeppelin_ now. Kaga's now been invited by the Zeiwanite and Karasutengu representatives to speak before the council itself. Zeppelin wishes right now to know if you wish the communication cut."

Gotō Kiichi blinked before he shook his head in stunned disbelief, the headache he had been experiencing for the last day or so now rising to a level that could easily drive him right into his bunk. "We can't sever the contact," he then hissed. "The girls are authorized to speak to the public whenever they're approached by the media even if such has always been kept under control." He then looked at Nagato. "Get Ataru-kun and Negako-sama here right away, Reiko-san!"

"Hai, Teitoku!"

As the battleship ran out of the office, the commander of the Fleet Shipgirl Project took a deep breath. He hadn't expected it to tumble down like this so quickly. Yes, thanks to the incredible speed and proven technology of the Main Dockyard now on the orbit of Mars opposite the Sun from the red planet, a space fleet of considerable size and power had been built to replace the fleet that had been assembled by Jack O'Neill's old co-workers in Stargate Command at Groom Lake in Nevada. It was necessary; just before Blood Week, a massive Abyssal fleet appeared off the coast of California and bombed the Nevada Test and Training Range right out of existence. Given the revelations made by Kaga the previous morning at Sasebo to the Moroboshi siblings, there was no doubt now in Gotō's mind that the Abyssals went after "Area 51" and similar locations worldwide was to remove all Goa'uld-related artifacts from Earth; the actual headquarters of Stargate Command in Colorado escaped such an attack because it was just too far inland. Cursing himself now for not having deeply questioned the converted battleship about what had made her "return to the light" after he had replaced the founder of the Fleet Shipgirl Project shortly before Nagato adopted her son, he then gazed on his would-be fiancée. "Can you feel your starship self, Anne?" he quietly asked, making Kongō gape at him. "Much that I trust Kei to keep a level head in this situation, she may say something that might be seen as offensive by these people on that planet. The sooner I can talk to them..."

"Would the other admirals mind that, Teitoku?" Kirishima demanded as her sister nodded her head, then relaxed herself as she sent out a VHF signal straight up into space; she knew THU _Kongō_ was in holding orbit at the meridian of Tōkyō, along with a good half-dozen space battleships and double the number of space aircraft carriers from both Japan and America.

"We discussed this once after the Avalonians reported to us how quick they were in getting those ships built, Isabel-chan," Gotō assured her as Kongō's eyes seemed to flutter. "If by any chance one of you managed a 'first contact' while aboard a starship with any of our galactic neighbours once the people who were here on Earth were helped back home by Ayumu-chan and Haruhi-chan after Ataru-kun's 'wife' agreed to go home, the admiral in charge of that shipgirl would conduct discussions."

"Could we get Naomi-chan to take you aboard _Zeppelin_?" Yamato asked while her fiancée chatted on her iPad with her superiors back in Washington. "Even if it might be seen as stepping in the Germans' way, Kei-san still answers to..."

She stopped herself as her ears perked, then she looked to the southwest. "What is it, Yasuko?" Kongō asked before she perked herself, then looked in that same direction. "Oh, Bucky...!" she then moaned out as she slapped her head.

The other shipgirls were also looking that way. Seeing that, Gotō could only groan. "Let me guess...!" he hissed out.

"Eager little beaver, isn't she?" Enterprise wondered.

Laughter filled the room as the admiral shook her head...

* * *

 _ **Ōiso, on the north coast of the Sagami Sea (thirty kilometres north of west from Yokosuka), that moment...**_

"Sugoi...!"

"Poi...!"

"Whoa! Now THAT'S flying!"

"Onē-chan's starship self is so beautiful!"

"Damn! They made her a fucking flush-deck?!"

"So if she can carry shuttlecraft, where's the damned hangar deck?!"

"Search me...!"

Standing now in the water of the Sagami Sea a half-kilometre south of the jetty that protected Ōiso Port from the open waters of the ocean, Fubuki could only shake her head in awe as the haze grey shape with a beautiful ultramarine blue underside soared gracefully down from the heavens towards her very position. In the distance to the north, a considerable crowd of civilians had gathered on Terugasaki Beach to the west of the jetty to stare at the sight of the first Japanese starship built by the Avalonians to come down from the heavens and land in the waters close to the Home Islands. Fortunately for the gathering of destroyers from three nations now sailing in the Sagami Sea itself, deflector shields that could prevent tidal surges from wrecking things once over two million tonnes of warp-hardened duranium dropped into the water had been deployed. Grateful that the bioroids had been so on the ball once they knew THU _Fubuki_ was about to make her public appearance, the first of her class of destroyers could only shake her head as the details of her starship self became clearer. "Flush decked, only two turrets for the main guns, one funnel to serve as a particle collector for the main reactors...!"

"Now the stinky aliens will go away finally!"

That was Hoppō, who was sitting on one of the beautiful hovercycles that the Moroboshi siblings often made use of whenever they weren't in the mood to travel by Dynajet or do a "relay beam" movement via materializer; said machine as now hovering close to Fubuki, it also carrying Yūdachi. "So you were trying to get rid of the aliens living on Earth all along, Hoppō-chan?" the destroyer asked as her starship self came to a hover metres over the choppy waters of the Pacific.

"Hai!" the child-shaped princess nodded. "Hoppō remembers there was a stupid copycat alien living on Kodiak. He had many pretty crystal bloods that he treated badly who helped find food for him. Hoppō was happy to bomb him to make him go away." She then hummed as she considered that. "Hoppō doesn't know what happened to the crystal bloods, though. Hoppō never found out until meanies came to kill Hoppō before Auntie Yamato and Auntie E came to save Hoppō..."

"You bombed him poi, right?" Yūdachi asked.

Hoppō nodded. "Poi!"

The fourth of the Shiratsuyu-class nodded in approval. "Poi!"

Fubuki chuckled. "I'm sure they're okay..."

"She's going in!" Akebono called out from nearby.

The destroyers all braced themselves as _Fubuki_ 's keel kissed the waters of the Pacific at about two kilometres from her shipgirl template, then the starship seemed to gently settle into the choppy waves. Instantly, a noticeable surge of water flowed away from the sides towards the shores of the Sagami Sea. The destroyers all braced themselves as the gentle surge pushed them up as if they were riding a good wave to surf while the hovercycle carrying Hoppō and Yūdachi elevated itself to prevent the poor Abyssal from taking an unscheduled dip into waters claimed by someone who didn't care for "human loving traitors". Once said wave was past them, Fubuki looked back. "Watch for the return tide!" she barked out.

Shouts of affirmation echoed from her friends as the surge slammed into the shallower water closer to the beach. As the crowds gasped while a sudden tidal wave surged up from the sea, the deflector shields instantly extended out to form an impenetrable wall, sending the water back flowing outward towards the Pacific. "Okay! Let's ride it in right to the side of the ship!" Fubuki then barked. "Try not to smack your bow on that thing, guys! I don't want to break it!"

" _ **HAI!**_ "/" _ **AYE!**_ " the other destroyers called out.

Soon enough, the water surged up under the destroyers' keels to lift them high into the air, sending them at the same time flying toward towards the huge mass of alien-forged metal dead ahead of them. Ottawa screamed out in delight as Gatineau quickly deployed a huge Canadian White Ensign on her mast, quickly followed by Hoel flying the Stars and Stripes, Murakumo unfurling the Kyokujitsu-ki and Ch'ungp'ung flying the T'aegŭkki. Again, Hoppō and Yūdachi were lifted safely above the return surge by the hovercycle's on-board computer, it manoeuvring to stay close to Fubuki and Mutsuki, who was keeping close to an unsteady Kisaragi. Distant cheers echoed in the late afternoon air from the shore as the destroyers found themselves propelled parallel to the landed starship's port side. Gazing at that massive haze grey hull, Johnston hummed as she took note of something. "Hey, Fujiko! You had hull number '20' back when you were first commissioned, right?!"

"Hai!"

"How come this thing's got '153' at the bow?!"

Fubuki hummed. She had noticed that hull number at the bow of her starship self. "I guess it's because I'm the hundred and fifty-third destroyer built for Japan since the original _Ikazuchi_ was launched in 1898, Rose-chan!"

"Oh, so they're doing proper numbering of these hulls instead of fake numbers, huh?!" Heermann noted with an approving nod. "Wonder when the heck the Russians and the others in the CIS will get on the damned bandwagon!"

Laughter filled the air — it was a running joke among shipgirls worldwide these days that even now, the shipgirls of the former Soviet Navy loved to change pendant numbers almost at the literal drop of a hat, a habit inherited from the old steel navy of years past — as the destroyers allowed themselves to ride on the reverse surge until they got halfway down the tall sides of _Fubuki_ 's seemingly glittering hull. Seeing a gangway automatically deploy out from the weather deck close to the aft main gun turret, her namesake shipgirl shouted out and pointed. Shimakaze was the first to divert course, she easily riding the outgoing tied until she got right into the lee of the hull, snaring the safety ladder of the gangway soon afterwards. "C'mon, slowpokes!" the blonde special destroyer called out as she leapt onto the platform, her rigging dispersing as her animated gun turret familiars followed her out of the water. "We don't want to get swamped when the next tsunami comes, huh?!"

The three turrets all squealed their support as Mutsuki effortlessly towed Kisaragi over to come onto the platform. Shimakaze was glad to hold out her hand for the just-returned second of her class to catch and hop on to relative safety. "Whoo!" the adopted native of Maizuru called out as she immediately collapsed on the stairs of the gangway while her older sister got onto the platform, then moved to position herself to help others. "That's just as rough as a good cyclone...HEY!"

Shimakaze and Mutsuki looked as Kisaragi found herself being carried up the built-in escalator towards the weather deck, which was forty-six metres above the waterline. "Hey! You're not gonna be first, slowpoke!" Shimakaze yelled as she raced up after the older destroyer, leaving the lead of her class gaping at such rude behaviour by the fastest shipgirl of the nation.

"Don't worry about it, Mutsuko-chan!" Fubuki then said as she came up to the landing, hopping on it with ease, then she turned to help Murakumo up. "Ano, Kūkisaikuru-san, could you please take 'Dachi and Hoppō-chan up?!"

" _Of course, Lieutenant Fukushima_ ," the cycle's on-board computer said as it rose to parallel the gangway to the weather deck.

"Poi!" Yūdachi called out in thanks as Hoppō squealed in anticipation.

By then, the other destroyers were coming onto the platform. Mutsuki ushered Fubuki up the escalator while her friends and sisters helped the other destroyers get aboard. As she ascended alongside that seemingly endless haze grey hull to the weather deck, the first of her class reached over to feel the duranium and get a test of its strength. She then yelped as a very cold surge warped through her hand to nearly freeze it off. "Ah!" she hissed out as Murakumo ran up to stand behind her, shaking her hand to make sure the blood circulation would not be affected. "Forgot this was in space not so long ago!"

"Yeah, I saw some sea ice forming on the sides of the hull as we came alongside," Murakumo noted as she looked past the safety rail to see the sides of that towing grey mass almost all the way to midships. Sure enough, there were small patches of frozen water tagged onto the hull at the waterline. "Last night, Yui-san said there were heat shields generators installed to prevent the hull from burning up when it comes into atmosphere when we asked why it was still shaped like a surface warship. Those shields must have retained the cold of outer space as it was coming down to help protect the insides."

Fubuki nodded as they passed the level of what would have been the old quarterdeck on the original destroyer design. Given that this ship was designed to operate mostly in deep space with only brief times on a planet's oceans, structural needs were different, which demanded a flush-deck design in lieu of the raised forecastle approach that had been standard for all Japanese destroyers right to the end of the Second World War. While this helped force the need to remove a super-firing turret at the "X" position as had been in the original design to keep the centre of gravity low in atmosphere, it made for a very clean design that kept anti-ship missiles — the outer space equivalent of the original design's three triple-tube launchers for the Type 93 torpedo — in hidden bays that could be aimed to port or starboard with just the opening of pressure doors. Given everything was done to a ten-to-one scale in comparison to the original design, Fubuki shuddered as she wondered how even something the size of Redet Invader's _Kashin_ could take a hit from a 6.1 metre anti-ship missile that was NINETY metres long!

 _How fast would that sort of thing go...?_ she then wondered.

"Fujiko-chan!"

Fubuki yelped before she slammed right into Shimakaze, who was waiting for her at the level of the weather deck, though neither she nor Kisaragi had actually stepped off the gangplank. "Oh! Sorry about that, Sumie-chan!"

"You okay?" the blonde prototype destroyer then asked.

The older destroyer shrugged. "Just thinking about all the anti-ship stuff they put on this thing," she noted before pausing as she saw the slight break between the gangplank's upper platform and the actual weather deck. Taking a deep breath — and noting that no one had come out of the ship to actually greet them — Fubuki then shrugged. "One small step for shipgirl..." she mock-quoted the first man to step onto the moon before actually making her first step aboard THU _Fubuki_.

" _Huaghyo do va'aanal va, Ashoi'cha._ "

Fubuki perked as the others now gathering on the gangplank platform looked around for the source of that voice, which sounded like an airy version of the reborn destroyer shipgirl's own tones. "Ship's computer, right?"

" _En._ "

"Can you speak Nihon-go?"

" _Hai, Onē-sama._ "

A delighted breath escaped the first modern destroyer before she looked around in confusion. "Um...where's the crew?"

" _There's only one person aboard, Onē-sama. The Engineer Watchmistress assigned to this ship is currently in Main Pilotage_ ," the computer helpfully provided before a hatchway opened up along the bulkhead of the aft superstructure behind "Y" Turret. " _Step through there, then follow the lights to the turbolift station. I'll see to it that you all will get to the Main Pilotage. The Engineer Watchmistress is currently engaged in doing a full defensive systems diagnostic._ " A sound similar to one's tongue being clicked inside the mouth echoed over the scene. " _I would be very hesitant on allowing Miss Yamamoto to come aboard._ "

Eyes locked on Hoppō, who had just got off the hovercycle with Akebono's help, then was followed by Yūdachi. "How come?" the fourth of the Shiratsuyu-class immediately asked as the child installation princess instantly huffed.

" _There is a sandpanther aboard, Kodachi-onēsama. The Engineer Watchmistress' own pet_ ," the computer explained. " _Seeing something that white would immediately make Vanilla think 'chew toy'. I doubt Miss Yamamoto would be able to escape him._ "

Hoppō snorted. "Hoppō's tougher than some silly panther...!"

 _ **RRRRRRRRRRRRAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWR...!**_

The destroyers turned to look as Hoppō found herself face-to-snout with a horse-sized gold-and-white-furred engine of destruction that seemed to have glowing eyes and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that looked strong enough to rend solid steel. As Hoppō screamed in horror at this huge example of old Sagussa's apex predator, the creature lunged out to snare the poor child with its front paws, burying Hoppō with his cougar-shaped head, thick and muscular neck — which came with metre-long snake-like gripping appendages that reminded the shipgirls familiar with the classic anime and light novel series of the Dirty Pair's pet war coeurl, Mughi — and upper thorax. Hoppō cried out in fear of being eaten as that weight crashed down on her, which took her so much by surprise that she couldn't get her body poised around to throw this thing off...

...before a very sandy-like tongue lapped up the back of her head, making her yelp in fright. "Aah! It's licking Hoppō!" She then blanched a very unhealthy shade of grey before moaning. "Ewww...Hoppō has alien cat germs now...!"

The destroyers all blinked in confusion, all of them with sweat-drops in their hair as the sandpanther began "grooming" the child-shaped Abyssal princess. " _Don't say I didn't warn you_ ," the _Fubuki_ 's computer then helpfully commented.

"Hey, Fujiko-chan!"

"Hai, Mutsuko-chan?"

"Hagrid-sensei has a cerberus named 'Fluffy', right?" Mutsuki asked.

"Hai! Harry-chan told us about him, remember?" Fubuki reminded her.

"Oh, right! How'd you think Hagrid-sensei would take Vanilla-san here?"

"Another 'misunderstood beast', I guess."

The other destroyers hummed as Vanilla continued to groom a moaning Hoppō...

* * *

 _ **In geosynchronous orbit at the 139th Meridian east of Greenwich (directly over the Pacific Ocean north of New Guinea northeast of Dobbo in Indonesia), aboard Tennō Heika Uchūkan**_ **Kongō** _ **, a half-hour later...**_

"Report, Commander."

The chief officer in charge of the Japanese space battlefleet that was being held in tight formation over the meridian that passed close to Tōkyō braced himself as she saluted her commanding officer. "Admiral, so far, Commander Fujita has been answering general questions concerning the current war from the Galactic Federation delegates," Lieutenant Commander Tatebayashi Sakurako stated as she got out of the flag admiral's chair, waving Gotō Kiichi into it. As Kongō herself got into the captain's chair to her admiral's left, the raven-haired native of Kanazawa added, "So far, save for Yethis-san..." — one could coat the flag bridge of THU _Kongō_ with the level of scorn she felt concerning that fellow — "...it's been very peaceful."

Gotō nodded as he gazed on the main view screen over the picture windows that now gave him a very beautiful view of the Moon in the near distance while he thanked the gods that Avalonians had the materializer system that allowed him to "beam" himself aboard his current flagship. "Please tell me that Admiral Hartmann is aboard _Bismarck_ at this time, Sakurako-san," he then noted as he gazed hopefully at her. "Much that it's nice for Kei and the others to speak from _Zeppelin_ 's bridge..."

"I'll inquire now, Admiral. Excuse me, please."

After bowing to him, she stepped over to a station off to the starboard side. As the other battleships all took the chance to tour the great bridge — naturally, along with Kongō came her sisters while Nagato and Yamato coordinated things back in Yokosuka — the Avalonian technician manning the communications station tapped controls. "We're still in monitoring mode, Admiral," Nanase Yū announced. "As Sakurako-san just said, it's been civil save for Yethis making a fool of himself."

"And the Niphentaxians, Yū-san?" Kongō asked.

The replica of one of the characters from the dating simulation video game _Sentimental Graffiti_ shrugged. "They're stunned at the fact that Thoughtmistress-prime Kei admitted to killing observers from Phentax Two when she served with the enemy fleet, Thoughtmistress-prime Anne, all in response to the presence of our sisters on Earth," the adopted native of Hiroshima answered. Gotō knew Yū had lived with replicas of the _Senchi_ characters on one of the outer colonies. She had been created at the request of a fan of the series to have big sister figures; they hadn't been abused right up to the Liberation. "Not only that, Thoughtmistress-prime Yoiko's presence in this discussion intimidates most of them too much. She hasn't said much..."

"And not revealed her link to the 'great evil'?" Gotō asked.

"Hai, Admiral."

"Pipe up the speakers, please."

"Hai."

The volume was turned up. " _...this End Treaty you have spoken of so far in this discussion is considered the FIRST true treaty that was established on your planet, Lady Kaga?_ " an aged man's voice then inquired.

"That is correct, Shushō-san," Kaga calmly replied from _Graf Zeppelin_. "Most normal people on Earth do not know of this treaty and its full ramifications, but all those mystically-minded who live on the planet — both in the magical enclaves and beyond their borders — are aware of it or can learn of it quite easy. In 'public' biographies of the Undying Lord, it's not mentioned, though learning of it is quite easy if one knows exactly where to look. None the less, the Abyssals — as they consider themselves Warriors of the Endless Sea which has echoed with the memories of the Great Expulsion twenty-five millennia ago — honour the treaty. When the Sea detected the abuse forced on the Avalonians who were dragged to Earth by their 'masters'..." — hearing the carrier's scorn made all the people on _Kongō_ 's bridge smirk in delight — "...before the turn of the last century, thus were the Hungry Ones born. I'm sure your Niphentaxian allies might have told you of the Ryūseizen."

" _The magical battleships built by the homeland of your planet's Jewel Warrior_ ," Kurama of Karasutengu then concluded.

"The same, Denka-san. Fortunately, the magicals of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Realm of New Zealand followed in the wake of the Dominion of Canada during the Second World War," Kaga explained. "However, as the abuse continued and magnified in many places — added onto the many attempts by enemy aliens from other planets in interfering with local affairs at witness the pitiful attempts by the Urusians and other powers to try to kill non-magical metahumans in the years after that war's end — the Sea decided something more capable was needed. That's when the ancient experiments of the Immortal Master, the Protector's teacher and adopted father, were made use of by the First Flagships. And we all came into being."

" _ **WE WERE SAVING YOU!**_ "

"From what, Yethis? Seeing Earth evolve into another _**Yiziba**_?"

Wild, horrified screams nearly made everyone on the bridge wince. As Gotō tried not to smirk at such a display of mindless fear, Haruna shook her head. "Um, Onē-sama, doesn't that sound like what Harry-chan told us about how magicals in Britain fear the uttering of Tom Riddle's battle name?" the fourth of her class then asked as she gazed in amusement at Kongō.

Kongō hummed before nodding. Before she could comment, Kaga's dry voice then purred out, "My! How like the magical isolationists on Earth you all act now! Fearing a mere NAME!" As mocking laughter then thundered over the speakers from the converted battleship's old fighting companions on _Zeppelin_ , she then snorted. "And you wonder why we hold no respect for any of your kind these days, Yethis? That you marched in and pretended that we didn't know anything at all...!"

" _ **STUPID CREATURE! YOU DID NOT...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KLONK!**_

"What was that?!" Kongō asked.

Hiei hummed. "Sounded like a cinder block being dropped on someone, Onē-sama."

The four sisters exchanged looks. "Tariko-chan!" Kirishima then concluded.

"Oh! Definitely Tariko-chan!" Haruna affirmed with a nod before she looked over at a now-sulking Kongō. "Onē-sama, stop frowning like that! You know that Yizibajohei look at things in a much different way that we Terrans do!"

Kongō humphed...

"Why in the name of all the Kami of the Universe do you gentlebeings tolerate such a spoiled CHILD in your midst?" a cold woman's voice then spoke, making everyone on _Kongō_ 's bridge tense on recognizing it. As delighted laughter filled the hall in Rajdhani, the seventh carrier of Operation Z snorted. "Much that many of you are like samurai in your discipline when in the presence of such a pathetic creature, not even the most well-trained warrior would have tolerated such behaviour from such a being, especially at the level all of you have shown so far. His presence among dignitaries representing the interests of this alliance of yours brings insult to you all! Why, may I ask, do you care for what this fool says? He does not speak for the good people of Uru or her colonies!" Everyone then imagined Yonaga's cold smile. "He only speaks for _**himself**_!"

" _ **WHO ARE YOU?!**_ " a new voice then thundered, the accent of a native of the third world of Oniboshi quickly apparent. " _ **IDENTIFY YOURSELF, CREATURE! ONLY**_ **LADY** _ **KAGA HAS THE RIGHT TO SPEAK AT THIS TIME...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KLONK!**_

"I hope Tariko-chan doesn't run out of cinder blocks," Kirishima commented.

Hiei and Haruna giggled as Kongō humphed again...

" _Lady Kaga, do you give your friend leave to speak now?_ "

Gotō perked on recognizing the voice of the so-called "crown princess of the universe" that Moroboshi Ataru had encountered three months before in the "normal" timeline. "Indeed I do, Denka-san," Kaga replied. "Yoiko, do ahead."

"My thanks, Kei," Yonaga replied. "I am Itō Yoiko, captain in Tennō's loyal Naval Service."

" _And what ship were you?_ " Kurama asked.

"Fifth of the Yamato-class, first commissioned into the service of Tennō during a terrible time for all humanity, I am Yonaga, Denka-san. Built in Maizuru, adopted by the Itō Clan of Chikugo..." Here, Yonaga paused dramatically. "...and the _**Moroboshi Clan of Mutsu**_!" As muffled gasps and horrified shrieks escaped the crowd — especially, the Kongō sisters and Gotō were quick to note, from the obvious Niphentaxian delegation off to the right side as seen on the main view screen — the seventh carrier added, "I speak also on behalf of the Primal One of the North and the good ally of both the Undying Lord of Rügen...and the _**Master of Entropy**_ of lost _**Sagussa**_!" As the whole assembly sucked in their breaths at that stunning revelation — that matched to shrieking cries from all the Niphentaxians present and visible cringing from people such as Kurama and Lupica, not to mention a certain red-haired queen in a red battlesuit-like dress midway up the left side of the hall, draped in a white cape — Yonaga sighed. "One of the truly oldest sentient beings on Earth, _**Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq**_."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

" _May I interrupt this, Lady Yonaga?_ "

The image of the meeting hall focused on one particular Niphentaxian woman. "Your name, young lady?" Yonaga bade.

" _Taran odai-Reslei, my lady._ "

"You may speak, Taran-san. Do not utter your mindless prattle, though."

Nodding her thanks, Taran faced Lupica. " _Your Highness, we know of the Primal One of the North that the Great Lady Yonaga now speaks of._ " As snickers from what had to be Zuikaku echoed in the background while Yonaga rolled her eyes at such empty praise, the former governor of Phentax Twenty-three added, " _According to the legends of the natives of the Arctic basin that have actually communicated with him — not to mention Lady Dean Raeburn and Lady Mistress Heather Thompkins — he's claimed to be the oldest sentient being still alive on Earth. A true nature spirit of immense power, his memories are said to date back to the time of the onset of the Quaternary glaciation. Almost THREE MILLION Terran years old!_ "

" _If I may, Lady Yonaga?_ "

That was an elderly Neptunian man closer to the lectern. "You are His Majesty, the King of Neptune?" Yonaga asked.

He bowed his head. " _I am he, good lady._ "

Yonaga graciously bowed her head in turn. "Please be brief, Heika-san."

" _My thanks, good lady._ " King Fuyu gazed on Lupica. " _I can confirm Governor Taran's information concerning the Primal Lord, Your Highness. Since we often were forced to move snow and ice from Triton to Earth, we delivered same to the Arctic basin whenever Earth's axial tilt allowed such. During several occasions that we did this, the technicians of the Central Warp Chamber often reported hearing a very powerful voice thanking us for 'gifts' of snow and ice. After they heard it once, a senior advisor suggested speaking to Lord Rjazán', Earth's Praetorian Guardian, about this. His Lordship confirmed the existence of Lord Napaaqtuqarunnanngittuq and his fellow 'great beasts' who aided Lord Josef Taserich in the removal of interdimensional demonic invaders commonly called 'Old Ones' during the period of the 'great banishment' twenty-five millennia ago as Terrans count years._ " As the delegates gasped, Fuyu smiled. " _Lord Josef, by the way, was also the one who was most responsible for forcing the Goa'uld System Lords off Earth five millennia ago. He was reported to have stayed on You Know Where until recently...when he returned to Earth. As Hunter Commander Nassur recently reported to us, Lord Josef was the man who helped the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom return to their homes and regain their lives after saving MILLIONS at the Battle of Toronto. Given that he has many friends now among They Who Must Never Be Named...!_ "

Croaked gasps escaped many in the crowd. Fuyu's eyes seemed to twinkle as he bowed to Yonaga's image. " _The floor is yours again, my lady. Please forgive me for taking your time speaking to all of us this day._ "

"My thanks, Heika-san," the seventh carrier said with a bow of her head.

" _Oh, how ASHAMED you must feel...!_ "

That was Fangi t'ndai-Marthon, who was looking with a mixture of horror and pity at the converted super-battleship. " _President Fangi! Lady Yonaga has the floor!_ " Lupica snapped. " _You have no right to interrupt!_ "

"Pay it no mind, Denka-san," Yonaga calmly declared as Gotō smirked while one of Yū's friends, Adachi Taeko, came over with tea. "My junior navigation officer's grandnephew told me of how much the so-called 'most devout' of his 'wife' sounded like yapping DOGS after a while!" As the Niphentaxians screamed in outrage at what she was inferring, a dry chuckle escaped Yonaga. "Indeed, I dare say Ataru-san _**understated**_ it. Even by that ONE sentence, this fool proved how UNWORTHY he is of many things. Least of all, his so-called 'goddess'. It is no wonder that Lum-san felt it necessary to LIE to Ataru-san concerning their 'marriage' to flee such creatures, never mind her fleeing her fellow would-be 'nobles' who still can't accept that their time in history has long since passed!" As many of the Urusian and Niphentaxian delegation shrieked in anger on hearing that unspoken accusation from her, the seventh carrier. "Much that I am not anywhere close to considering something as intimate as marriage given that Ataru-san is spiritually of my blood, I am pleased to note that his REAL wife — and no, _**Amora-san**_ , I do NOT speak of you! — also wishes the honour to address you all so you may hear her own opinions on what some of you did to her beloved, not to mention her opinions on how you have ALL behaved concerning Earth." As Queen Elle of her namesake kingdom shuddered at Yonaga's use of her birth name, the seventh carrier smirked. "Roberta-san?"

" _My thanks, Yoiko._ "

A materializer beam then echoed over the speakers...

...then everyone on _Kongō_ 's bridge gaped on seeing _**Roma**_ standing in the hall on a planet EIGHTY light-years from Earth!

She wasn't alone.

" **Oh, my** ," Ataru — as Cyborg — breathed out in amusement. " **This is even gaudier than what Tariko described to me.** " He shook his head as all the delegates gaped in horror at what was now in their midst. " **So...** _ **same**_ **!** "

Terrified shrieks filled the hall as Gotō shook his head...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **RSK** — Short for **Raumschiffskanone** ("starship cannon"); **C/28** — Short for **Construktionsjahr/1928** ("Year of Design: 1928"); **NG** — Short for **Neue Generation** ("new generation") **Teilchenphotonenkanone** — Particle photon cannon; **Stárshaja Sestrá** — Elder sister; **Deutsche Sprache** — German (language); **Nekhoroshó** — Not good; **Schiffsbauer** — Shipwright; **Generalfeldmarschall** — Field Marshal General, the equivalent of a British field marshal (NATO rank code OF-10); **Verkhóvnyj Sovét** — Supreme Soviet, the highest legislative body of the Soviet Union from 1938-91; **Kyokujitsu-ki** — The Rising Sun Flag, which serves as the naval ensign of the Maritime Self-Defence Force; **T'aegŭkki** — Literally "flag of the supreme ultimate (of Taoism)", this is the national flag of the Republic of Korea, which also serves as the naval ensign; **Shush** **ō** — Prime Minister.

Patronymics used in this part:

 **Amélija Ferdinándovna** — Amélie, daughter of Ferdinand  
 **Khímeko Khagémiovna** — Himeko, daughter of Hagemi  
 **Jákova Jákovlevna** — Jamie, daughter of James  
 **Maksína Maksimiliánovna** — Maxine, daughter of Max

The speech by **Rupert Giles** that **THG** _ **Kisaragi**_ ( **Kisaragi Kyōko** ) quotes here comes from the second episode of the first season of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ , "The Harvest".

 **Tatebayashi Sakurako** is the admiral character depicted in dōjinshi drawn by **Niwatazumi**. Pictures of same can be found at Danbooru. In those stories, Sakurako is depicted as a straight girl commanding lesbian or bisexually-curious shipgirls at her current base of operations, creating all sorts of interesting incidents.

Shipgirls introduced in this story:

 _ **GERMANY  
**_ **DMS Friedrich Eckoldt** — Thora Flora Eckoldt  
 **DMS Anton Schmitt** — Antonia Lotta Schmitt

* * *

 **OMAKE**  
 _ **WIZARDS AND SANDPANTHERS**_

 _ **Note:**_ This short is set six months before the start of the main story in Part One.

* * *

 _ **London, Headquarters of the British Ministry of Magic (under Northumberland Street in the City of Westminster), Thursday 15 December 2016, mid-morning...**_

"Great Merlin! Are you SURE this isn't a magical creature, Lady Negako?!"

"It depends on how one defines the concept of a 'magical' being, Cornelius."

Hearing that from the twenty-something woman in the black martial arts gi with hakama trousers now standing calmly close to the Fountain of Magical Brethren in the main atrium of the Ministry headquarters complex, the current Minister for Magic could only shake his head as he turned to gaze on the centaur-sized creature now relaxing on the floor near the elevator landings that led to various places in London which magicals could use to secretly enter the complex. Shaped like an American cougar with bat-like wings that projected from the area of its shoulder blades, said creature also had metre-long snake-like gripping appendages projecting from the sides of its neck and its long tail had a diamond-shaped pad at the tip similar to a beaver's tail. The pelt was a beautiful caramel brown that turned to snowy white-grey on the undersides. Said creature now was nibbling on what was left of an acromantula leg, which it had caught some distance from the magical zone around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade when it had been hunting from the isolated village of Rannoch Moors, where a small community of the United Kingdom's newest citizens had taken up residence in the last three months.

A community that was going to produce a long string of headaches for certain members of the Ministry of Magic, a secretly smiling Albus Dumbledore knew as he took in the measure of this remarkable example of old Sagussa's apex predator.

"This is a polar sandpanther, Negako?" the headmaster then asked.

"Indeed it is, Albus," Negako said as she walked over to Macy, offering her hand for the sandpanther to sniff. "The polar regions of Sagussa were actually quite temperate when it came to temperature in the wake of the Clone Rights War. Most native animals on Sagussa migrated to those zones in the wake of the detonation of Eisen'a that placed Sagussa itself at the very inner edge of the habitable zone concerning the entire solar system. It surprises me that those who survived the Clone Rights War did not migrate immediately to Maghilsa — the fourth planet of the system — as it became more habitable. The entire issue of this 'grand design' that marked Ataru before he took the Promise might have been avoided."

"Well, there's no sign of obvious magic within Mister Macy," a new voice then called out, making people gaze upon Newt Scamander, who had come from his home in Ottery Saint Catchpole to examine this remarkable hunter. People gazed upon the famous magical zoologist as he gently turned his wand while he continued his examination. "A very high mesonium count in the blood, which would allow him to manipulate magic in some ways. Almost human intelligence; it's no wonder many of our Avalonian friends say that sandpanthers 'own' their humans on Sagussa. And it's no wonder he was able to kill a fully grown acromantula. Certainly saved Ms. Grimblehawk and her friends quite a spell of trouble, not to mention Commander Tothill."

Hearing the human name of the third Orion-class super-dreadnought, Mathilda Grimblehawk tried not to hiss out; the enmity between Conqueror and the field officers of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures ever since the veteran of the Battle of Jutland had been summoned back to duty at Torpoint four years ago was very well known, especially since Conqueror made it a personal mission to hunt down magical creatures and slay them, then claim the heads as trophies. Negako's eyebrow arched as she gazed dispassionately at the half-blood native of Dorset who had worked on many cases concerning magical creatures getting out into the normal realm since shortly after the ends of the Wars of Liberation. "Mathilda, are you that desperate to lose your magic?" the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu calmly asked.

Screams of horror escaped many of the people there as Grimblehawk gaped in disbelief at the Earth Angel. "Wh-wh-what does th-th-that mean, L-l-Lady Negako...?" she sputtered out while visibly cringing at such a threat.

"Do you not understand the Sacred Laws of Conquest?"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Oh, bloody hell...!" Grimblehawk groaned.

"You still have the head, I hope," Scamander mused as he gazed her way.

She nodded before racing off. "I don't understand," Fudge stated while confusion crossed Dolores Umbridge's face. "The dragon that shipgirl slew was a magical creature, on LOAN to us from the Hungarian Ministry! She had no right...!"

"She had EVERY right to do so, Cornelius," Negako stated in a very icy voice, which made the minister and his chief toad cringe at the cold aura that just formed around her. "You people have argued all along that shipgirls are magical. In that, you are correct even if it was the normals who brought them back to duty at Torpoint and elsewhere. Even if they are shielded from your influence by Magical Royal Proclamations issued by Her Majesty after the first summons were made by Katharine Jones' staff, they are still bound to the basic laws of magic as has been acknowledged for millennia. The Sacred Laws of Conquest apply in this case. Helen defeated and slew the dragon once it escaped the control of Mathilda's co-workers at the reserve, thus had right to claim the carcass. That was set in law by the Wizengamot in 1711. Do you wish to defy THAT?!"

Fudge gargled on hearing that as Dumbledore shook his head in amusement while Umbridge tried not to seethe too much at the fact that her "dear Cornelius" wasn't going to get his way this time. While clearly, the concept of "tact" had long ago eluded the understanding of Earth's first true artificial intelligence, the fact that Negako always told it like it is came in very handy at times, especially when dealing with idiots. Given her reputation as the one being on Earth to have fought the _**War Hawks**_ to an effective standstill during World War Two just made magicals worldwide believe every word she said. That she loathed lying unless so ordered by Japan's Heavenly Sovereign was just an extra bonus. Hopefully, wizarding conservatives — the headmaster knew Lucius Malfoy was present at this gathering in the Atrium, as was Mason Nott — would pick up on the hints that the ninjutsu grandmaster was giving, then act on them to make sure they would survive what would soon come...

" _ **AMELIA!**_ "

Amelia Bones perked, then looked over. "What is it, Shack?!"

Kingsley Shacklebolt raced up to her from the direction of one of the floo portals. "There's another acromantula incident in the area of Hogwarts!" he stated, which made the crowd gasp. "A whole company's worth...!"

A growl escaped the sandpanther nearby, who had perked on hearing about more of the tasty big spiders on the loose. "I believe Mister Macy desires to help out in this case, Kingsley," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye...

* * *

 _ **West of Hogwarts, minutes later...**_

"Oh! You poor fellows! Who did that to you...?!"

As Rubeus Hagrid moved to comfort the moaning creature — he recognize him as one of Aragog's and Mosag's many elder sons — the acromantula now missing two of its legs rasped out, "Winged Death...Winged Death, Father's friend...!"

The now-roughly half-company's worth of large spiders were now in a protective circle, trying to keep their wounded members — all of whom were missing legs and squealing in pain from deep slashes in their bodies and limbs — in a clearing near the edge of the ward border that protected Hogwarts and Hogsmeade from normal intrusion. With Hagrid at this time was Silvanus Kettleburn, the professor in charge of Care of Magical Creatures class. The latter was an elderly man who had lost a good portion of his limbs save his left arm and upper left leg due to recklessness in his youth dealing with all sorts of magical creatures; he had magical prosthetics that had replaced the lost limbs and could still move around with a cane. "Bloody hell...what caused this...?" Kettleburn wondered before he perked on hearing a queer ringing noise from behind him.

He turned...

 _ **RRRRRRRRRRRRAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWR...!**_

The acromantulas shrieked in terror as a brown-and-grey blur whipped past Hagrid to plow into them with the force of an avalanche. As the part-giant groundskeeper gaped in shock on seeing what had to be a thestral-sized wild cat with WINGS with a span over triple its length wade into the giant spiders to rip them apart, more roars from overhead made Hagrid and Kettleburn look up to see a whole PRIDE of those great cats soar out of the air to land among the acromantulas.

It was bloody...

It was gory beyond belief...

It was a fight between powerful magical creatures and examples of a being descent from ancestors that had survived MILLENNIA of a blazing hot desert world left that way thanks to a five-century CIVIL WAR that wiped out a CIVILIZATION.

In the end, thanks very much to surprise...

It was simply no contest.

"Er...Professor...?"

"Yes, Hagrid?"

"Are they listed in _Fantastic Beasts_?"

"I'll put them in the next edition, Hagrid."

Both men turned, then smiled as Newt Scamander came up to join them, followed by Albus Dumbledore and a small troupe of aurors led by Kingsley Shacklebolt and a strange Oriental woman in a traditional-looking black tunic with wide-legged pleated trousers, a black belt with a golden kanji symbol around her waist. "So where do these come from, Professor?" Hagrid asked.

"Believe it or not, Hagrid, another planet," Scamander answered.

" _ **MACY!**_ "

The first beast that had appeared to attack the acromantulas perked before he looked over, a questioning growl escaping him. The magicals all blinked at that child-like voice, then they turned to look...

...just as an adorable girl of ten stepped off what looked like a tan-coloured snowmobile with a jet engine fitted underneath the seat, she dressed in a T-shirt over a jean jumper. As she walked over to where Macy was sitting enjoying his latest kill, one of the aurors sneered as he levelled his wand at the strange machine. "Filthy muggle trash! _**REDUC-!**_ "

"NO...!" Dumbledore screamed out as he moved to stun the auror...

...before Negako's knife-hand chop crushed the fool's throat!

As the man collapsed onto his knees while he found himself incapable of breathing, the grandmaster knelt down to pull up his left robe sleeve, revealing a faded yet still-familiar magical tattoo on the inner side. As the other aurors gasped in horror on seeing that this man had been a fighter for Voldemort a decade before, Negako shook her head before she gazed on the curious-looking girl, who hadn't reacted to seeing her hovercycle threatened by the idiot staleblood; as both she and Negako knew, the design came with a meson-powered defensive force field system that could easily defeat most forms of magical attack. "Joanna, take Macy and his pride back to the village and keep them there," she bade.

The girl blinked before she nodded, smiling. "Yes, Thoughtmistress-prime!"

Negako tried not to twitch at being called _**that**_. As the auror she struck rasped his final breath, the grandmaster pulled out a device from her trousers, then tapped a control before putting it on his chest. A second later, he was beamed out of the forest back to London. "Alert Amelia that she has a traitor in the ranks coming into her office now, Kingsley," the ninjutsu grandmaster declared, an amused smile on her face as she moved to ensure the acromantulas were dead while young Joanna Rann moved to herd Macy and his pride away from them. Naturally, the sandpanthers were rather reluctant to leave such juicy food behind, but their love of the young kitten they had adopted as part of their pride overrode that.

"Of course, Lady Negako," the tall native of Grenada affirmed with a nod.

As Joanna got back aboard her hovercycle to drive off to the Avalonian settlement near Rannoch Moors with many of the sandpanthers leaping into the air and flying off under their own power to pursue, a voice then asked, "What do you think?"

People turned to gaze on Scamander and Kettleburn. "From another planet, you said, Newt?" the latter asked.

"Yes. Same planet as where the Space Angels come from."

"The ones the stupid idiots in the Wizengamot tried to have declared creatures before the Queen had that shut down?"

"Same people. That girl was one of them, Negako?"

"Indeed she was, Newton," Negako said as she drew out her soulsword, then began plunging same into the still-struggling acromantula. "Oh, Rubeus..." she then called out as she gazed on one of Voldemort's early victims.

Hagrid — who looked ready to cry on seeing such slaughter unleashed on his old pet's children — perked. "Wh-what...?"

"For one who cares for all magical creatures, you fail to comprehend that in the vastness of Nature, there are laws that override even the most powerful wishes of any being — even those such as myself — concerning the survival of one particular species at the cost of others. Learn that," the ninjutsu grandmaster stated. "Never fear. I will make Aragog understand that his children are not to leave the boundaries of their hunting zone to prevent this sort of incident in the future."

"Um, dear lady...?"

"Is it possible...?"

"That we could...?"

"Obtain such a handsome cat...?"

"...for ourselves?!"

Dumbledore smirked. "What are you two boys doing out here?!" he asked as he looked over his shoulders at the current heir of the Marauders, who had come with tools necessary to collect various samples from the dead acromantulas.

Fred and George Weasley shrugged. "Just getting potions ingredients, Professor," the former then confessed.

"We saw the wounded acromantulas, then came out to wait for them to die," the latter added.

"Didn't expect WINGED TIGERS to show up to maul them to death."

"Especially since a little girl seems to own them all."

"Sandpanthers own their humans, George," Negako warned as she gazed in amusement at them. "Be assured — especially for Ronald's sake, given his arachnophobia — that I will see if there is a sandpanther willing to own your family by the end of the current scholastic year. In the meantime, the venom sacs on all the deceased acromantulas here can be tapped. I will keep Aragog and his family away from you while you deal with the corpses here. I will speak to you later, Albus."

"Thank you for your assistance, Negako," Dumbledore said as the ninjutsu grandmaster walked away before he gazed knowingly at the Weasley twins. "Try to be back in the castle before nightfall, gentlemen."

"Yes, sir!" Fred and George said as they gave him jaunty salutes...

 _ **Fin...**_


	28. High Noon for the Imperial Round of Uru

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 _ **Rajdhani on Tahupraemiku, the hall of the Council of the Galactic Federation, the 29th Day of the Eighth Month, noon (Tōkyō time: Friday 26 May, suppertime)...**_

" _ **HE HAS NO RIGHT TO BE...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KLONK!**_

Many of the delegates representing the member states of the Federation all laughed on seeing that Seq Yethis had yet again been smashed on the head by a falling cinder block that came out of nowhere. As the transformed Moroboshi Ataru shook his head in amusement, Yonaga chuckled at the sight. " _Your Highness, I turn the floor over to my most esteemed friend, the Lady Roma of Roma and Trieste; and her beloved, my junior navigation officer's grandnephew, Marquess Moroboshi Ataru of Mutsu in Japan on Earth and the planet Sagussa_ ," the seventh carrier of Operation Z declared from the bridge of DMR _Graf Zeppelin_ on Earth. As Lupica nodded in understanding, Yonaga added, " _Be warned: My senior admiral is monitoring this meeting. He wishes to analyze the situation concerning what is being debated here. He may request to speak before this council._ "

"Certainly, Lady Yonaga," the "crown princess of the Universe" declared with a nod. "My greetings to Lord Admiral Gotō. I assume he is aboard one of the other starships of the space division of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force."

" _Indeed, Your Highness_ ," a man's voice cut in as the image on the main view screen at the aft end of the hall split in half, revealing Gotō Kiichi sitting in the admiral's chair aboard THU _Kongō_. " _Please, Roma, go ahead._ "

" _ **NO!**_ "

That, Ataru realized, was General Azu Des, Yethis' chief ally in the Imperial Round and the current leader of the Urusian Defence Intelligence Directorate. Sporting a bruise on his forehead already thanks to a dropped cinder block, he was an overweight fellow with grey in his dark green hair. "We will NOT hear from this creature, much less this perverted monster that dared to SEDUCE Lum, then STABBED HER IN THE BACK when he drove her off Earth! We will only listen to...!"

 _ **KK-KLONK!**_

Cinder block number two just smashed him down. "I object!" King Fuyu of Neptune then declared. "Considering the behaviour of my daughter's friend may have forced the Chosen One to don his current armour as he did at Morningstar Plain...!"

" _ **LIES!**_ " Queen Elle shrilled. " _ **HONEY IS NOT...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KRACK!**_

Everyone gasped on hearing the sound of flesh meeting flesh...

...then they gasped on seeing who had just slapped the Rose Queen down.

" _ **LADY NOA?!**_ " one of the Urusian delegates exclaimed.

Ataru inwardly smiled on noting the one who spoke was Redet Negau, his would-be sister-in-law. Born Renning Negau, she had been adopted by Lum's father Invader when she had been expelled from her old family due to her anti-Imperial leanings. Now a captain in the Urusian Defence Force, she was one of Des' chief assistants in the Urusian security/intelligence agency even if the "class traitor" wasn't trusted by the Imperial Round's leaders. "Are you sure, Captain?" Lupica demanded as many of the delegates gaped in reverence on noting that one of the _**Maidens of the Eternal Voyager**_ was standing among them.

Negau nodded. "We have ways of testing, Your Highness."

Lupica nodded in turn, trying not to smile at this development. "If you will permit this, My Lady?" she then asked.

Aruka Noa — known before Ataru's first visit to Sagussa a decade ago simply as Daishi'cha #19282 — nodded her permission. "You may approach, Shipmistress," the reborn elder of the Maidens of Aruka, seen as demigods among the people of the third world of Oniboshi, said with a nod, her own blue eyes sparkling in amusement as she made a beckoning motion.

Negau bowed her head deeply before she flew over, drawing out a tricorder. Landing before the beautiful Seishin-turned-Sagussan teenager with the short-cropped, shaggy chestnut brown hair, she went to one knee, then quickly programmed controls. Nearby delegates, including Elle's aged nanny Babara de Esterchild and Shigaten Benten's adopted father Ebisu, came over to gaze at the small readout screen. As both nodded — which caused several of the Urusian delegates to shudder in sullen outrage on realizing that the other dignitaries in the room would accept what the class traitor would soon declare as the truth — and Elle herself winced in horror on realizing that the ONE power that could stop her pursuit of Ataru was clearly presenting herself to the whole of the Federation, Negau began her scan. As Ataru's good eye glanced up to the port-side gallery where his would-be "wife" was now seated with her best friends, a _beep!_ echoed from the scanning machine.

As people tensed, Negau blinked as her blue eyes teared, then she bowed her head to the reborn saviour of Uru. "My Lady...!"

Shocked cries of delight echoed through the hall. "Great Lady, you honour us with your presence here this day!" Fuyu declared as Kurama began clapping her hands in delight. "Please, tell us: Is it true? Is Ataru...?"

"Our 'Chosen One'?" Noa asked as her eyebrow arched in amusement. As she waved Negau to her feet, then allowed Ebisu to courtly kiss her hand, she stared at the man who had changed her life much for the better when he was but a child. "If you can all see my uniform, then gaze on what Ataru is wearing right now, I think the conclusion is quite obvious, Your Majesty."

The delegates blinked before they stared at Ataru, then looked back at the newcomer. As many of the shipgirls on or near Earth giggled at the obvious visual connection, everyone was quick to note the similarities of design between the golden windrider on Noa's black jumpsuit top and the gold-and-silver metal that the transformed Ataru wore on his chest...which had the same general cut and design as what the Elder Mother of the Fifth Republic of Sagussa had. Inwardly, Ataru was happy that Noa and her sister Daishi'cha had adopted the modified work jumpsuit design, which eliminated provocative gold-trimmed diamond-shaped cuts over the navel, the arch of the hips and the small of the back that exposed very lewd levels of bare skin to the viewer. She also bore wreath-of-laurel trimming down the outer sides of her arms and her legs below the golden belt around her waist, three laurel rank "stripes" on her lower arms indicating her position as minister in government.

"Oh, dear..." Fuyu breathed out. "My apologies for doubting you, young man..."

Ataru shrugged as cold fire consumed him for a second, returning him back to a full-human state. People then croaked on seeing that he was in the same model of uniform as Noa herself wore, the only difference being that he had five "stripes" on his lower arms. As Roma smiled in delight on seeing the thunderstruck look on Elle's face and the sad acceptance on Lum's, a voice shrieked out from the Niphentaxian delegation, " _ **YOU MUST REJECT HIM, NOA-SAMA! HE IS THE...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

"...Great...Evil...!" Fangi t'ndai-Marthon croaked out after a cinder block smashed him down on his head.

Noa gazed at him, then she blinked. "Why?"

"Why...wh-what, Noa-sama...?" one of Fangi's friends sputtered.

"Why is Ataru this 'great evil'? Entropy is neutral. It is neither good nor evil. It simply IS!" She shook her head. "No. We refuse to acknowledge the 'faith' of a spoiled BOY who simply got JEALOUS of the fact that his 'goddess' — whom he wanted for HIMSELF in the end! — fell in love with a man who never treated her like the 'marble lady' as she was treated on Uru, never mind what your own countrymen did to her! I can understand why Lum fell in love with Ataru. Even if he had his own problems thanks to those Te'a spawned creatures that loved to inhabit the namesake of the Master's Keep — to say anything of his oath to allow Thoughtmistress-prime Negako to be her own being at last, an oath the man YOU call the 'arch-heretic' helped see fulfilled almost a year ago thanks to the help of Sky Lord Nengmek'i and the Lady K'ekhech of Ait'uch Nehech — there was a chance that Lum could win Ataru's heart and become our Daite'cha's Other." She shook her head. "Sadly, too much stood in their way. And thanks to YOUR observers on Earth who didn't BOTHER to learn the truth of what was making the Abyssals appear..." She pointed at them. " _ **YOU BETRAYED YOUR OWN GODDESS!**_ " she shrieked.

The Niphentaxians wailed in denial on hearing that accusation. "I'm going to add what Minister Noa just said!" Roma barked out, making many of the delegates focus on her. "Four hundred million dead in China! Three hundred million in India! A hundred million in Indonesia! Millions more in almost every nation that has an ocean coastline worldwide on Earth! _**ALL THANKS TO YOU!**_ " the battleship shrieked as she also pointed at the delegation from Phentax Two. "Over a BILLION people, _**DEAD**_! By all rights, my husband should unleash a GENESIS BOMB to completely WIPE you out of EXISTENCE!" As many of the delegates gasped on hearing that, the third of the Littorio-class smirked. "Since 'life' already exists on Phentax Two, the deployment of such a device..." Her smile then turned totally evil. "...would _**destroy**_ such 'life'...in favor of its _**new matrix**_."

Croaked sounds and gulps filled the hall at that threat as the Niphentaxians gaped in horror at such an apocalyptic warning from Roma. "They have such devices," Kurama then spoke up. "My people have long owed an honour debt to the Gatherer — the ship everyone else calls 'Eternal Voyager' — for his saving many of my people from the Celestial Toymaker a millennia ago. We were able to learn much more about the Grand Design of the Fifth Republic than what President Lecasur and others who have walked the Gatherer's decks over the millennia from other worlds learned. Genesis bombs — one of many such creations of the insane period in the Fourth Republic's history that led to the Clone Rights War — are in storage in the Mobile Science Station, which lies in orbit over the seventh world of the Sen'a system. Given what Minister Noa accused _**Former**_ President Ōgi of — and given how much that brat gladly caused Ataru's own reputation to be shamed in the year Lum lived with him in Tomobiki, something that only began to recover when the truth of Morningstar Plain and the Liberation of the Avalonians was declared weeks ago by Lady Chancellor Nakkyek — I wouldn't put it past Ataru now _**to do just that**_!" As many — even among the Urusian delegates — nodded in grim agreement, Kurama smiled. "I find it a lot easier to deal with President Miree than this mindless idiot!" She contemptuously waved at the slowly-recovering Fangi before sitting down in her chair.

"HEAR! HEAR!" Prime Minister Hosha of Zeiwan chanted.

Wild cheers filled the hall. Lupica allowed that for a moment before she tapped a control on the lectern to allow flashing lights to blink in the hall, thus calming the considerable crowd down. "Much that we do appreciate all this information, I remind everyone here that Lady Roma and her husband currently have the floor," the princess of Tahupraemiku stated, which made people laugh. "If you would introduce yourself, my lady," she then said with an apologetic bow to the battleship.

"Thank you, Your Highness," Roma stated. "I am Frigate Captain Roberta Ansaldo of the Vongola and the Moroboshi, officer of the Italian Navy. My ship-name is _Roma_ and I am considered adopted of both my namesake city and the city and province of Trieste in the Italian Republic, member nation-state of the United Nations of the planet Earth. Though we have yet to have a formal marriage ceremony, I am seen as married and soul-bonded to the man now standing beside me, First Citizen Moroboshi Ataru of the Fifth Republic of Sagussa, honorary citizen of the Republic of New Avalon." She then smirked. " _Genesis bomb_...!" she then sing-songed before she gazed knowingly over her shoulder at the Niphentaxian delegation, all of who had risen to shout at the battleship for actually openly declaring that their escaped slaves had formed an independent government.

They all cringed as others in the hall laughed...

* * *

 _ **Aboard THU**_ **Fubuki** _ **in the Sagami Sea, that moment...**_

"Eh?! Roberta-sempai deployed with _Roma_ to this planet, Zia-chan?!"

"Sì, Fujiko!" a frustrated Libeccio snarled from her private quarters in Taranto. "We've spent time learning all the systems of our namesake starships ever since Ataru told Roberta about _Roma_ and brought her aboard that ship after work on her was finished three months ago. We were told to not say anything to anyone in case something leaked to the Niphentaxian observers who were still on Earth." Here, the adopted native of Ancona on the Adriatic coast of Italy blushed. "We saw that they were heading out with _Roma_ a few hours ago and volunteered to go with them as escorts, but..." She shrugged.

Fubuki moaned as the other destroyers listening to this shook their heads. Standing orders in all shipgirl forces worldwide stated that a battleship-class shipgirl would never go anywhere without destroyer escort. Exceptions were made for the magical battleships from Canada, Australia and New Zealand thanks to the Statute of Secrecy, but the idea of Nave Stellare Italiana _Roma_ going to another _**planet**_ over eighty light years away without escort just struck them as wrong...

"Um, Fujiko-chan?"

Fubuki looked over at Mutsuki, who was seated at the communications station off to her port. "What is it, Mutsuko-chan?"

"I'm tapping into the signal from the meeting on Tahupraemiku," the first of her class of destroyer reported. "I can put it up on the main view screen right now. Sempai's busy threatening those baka Niphentaxians! You've got to hear it!"

The other destroyers in the main pilotage of THU _Fubuki_ laughed. "Hai! Put it up there!" Fubuki declared; she had been speaking to Libeccio via a fixed dataPADD on the small platform before the captain's chair. "Let's get a few laughs!"

More laughter filled the star destroyer's main pilotage as the Avalonian engineer that had been assigned to _Fubuki_ , Asai Mayumi, continued her work at the station to be used by the officer of the watch. "Hai!" Mutsuki said as she tapped a control.

Eyes locked on the view screen before everyone ducked as a shrieking man's voice bellowed, " _ **...LIES! ALL LIES! THIS IS A TRICK OF THE GREAT EVIL! HE'S SEDUCED THE MAIDENS! HE'S SEDUCED THE BRAVE SHIPGIRLS! WE CAN'T...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KLONK!**_

"What the poi was THAT?!" Yūdachi asked from the helm station.

"That's Fangi, 'Dachi," Libeccio answered, revealing that she herself had been monitoring things on Tahupraemiku, most likely through the communications suite aboard NSI _Libeccio_. "He's the current boss of the copycat aliens Negako got thrown off the planet over the last year. He's been screaming every insult he can at Ataru because he's the devil figure in that so-called 'church' founded by the man who was stalking Lum all the time! But the insults are just plain LAME!"

"Stinky alien...saying those stupid things about Ataru-niichan...!"

That was a huffing Hoppō, who had been allowed to sit at the navigator officer's station next to Yūdachi. Said installation princess was glaring wrathfully at the image of the screaming man now pointing accusingly at Ataru...

...who had got a chair for himself, sat himself on it, then pulled out a bag of popcorn as he gazed at the bellowing Fangi while munching away. While most of the delegates in that chamber were grinning in delight on seeing such a show of disrespect by the former Terran tag race champion, there were those who were glaring hatefully at the man. Most were in the Urusian delegation near the head of the room on the starboard side, while there was a red-haired woman in a rose-red battlesuit with white cape now gazing in frustration at Ataru's current companion. Standing near her was a familiar chestnut-haired woman with tapered ears in a black-and-gold jumpsuit. "Oh, there's Aruka Noa-san!" Fubuki said as she pointed. "She's the one who took Ataru-kun to Sagussa before he took the Promise and had Negako-sensei's soul put into his mind. What's she doing there? All the Sagussans are busy clearing out what was in the Chamber of Eternity before they abandon the planet...!"

"I think that woman in the cape beside Noa-san is Queen Elle," Mutsuki mused.

"Ataru-kun's other 'wife'?" Yūdachi asked.

"Hai. No doubt, Noa-san's laying down the law about Ataru-kun by being there."

" _Excuse me...?_ "

The destroyers all perked on hearing that voice...

* * *

 _ **Rajdhani...**_

Lupica perked on hearing that aged voice. "Elder Teo! What are you doing here?!"

Walking into the chambers was a middle-aged man in formal robes that reminded people on Earth in many ways of an 'amīr from the Middle East. In his hand was a primitive version of a dataPADD. "Forgive me, Highness, but I need to get some work done here," Teo stated as he bowed his head. "Is there an Aruka Noa of Sagussa anywhere in this chamber?" he then asked.

"Here!" Noa called out, holding up her hand.

His eyes widened on seeing her uniform, then he came over, formally bowing over her hand as he gave her a courtly kiss. "Please, Great Lady, there's no need to register the Voyager for docking permits over our planet," he said as he drew out a sphere of mesonium the size of a baseball. "I assume that the term 'Gatherer' is the proper name for the Voyager?"

"It is indeed," Noa said as she took the payment she had made to Teo's staff when she visited them to register the presence of a ten kilometre-long superdreadnought battlecarrier in high parking orbit over Tahupraemiku, it disappearing in a materializer beam. "However, we feel formalities HAVE to be observed. Unlike SOME people who seem to think it's alright to dock a large ship powered by ANTIMATTER close to a large population centre." She gave him a knowing look and grin on saying that.

The senior dockmaster in charge of starship movements over and near Rajdhani smirked as he glared at the Urusian delegation, many of whom shuddered at the unspoken accusation the Elder Mother of Sagussa just made in front of those others present today. Ataru was quick to note that, then he glanced out the windows, gazing at the Kashin-class battlewagon now parked in low atmospheric orbit about ten kilometres away from the council chambers, it floating two kilometres above ground level. Smirking as he nibbled his popcorn, he then perked as Teo finished with Noa, then he looked around. "Is there a Frigate Captain Roberta Ansaldo of the Italian Republic on Earth anywhere in these chambers?" he then asked.

"Here," Roma said as she held up her hand.

He gazed at her, then he gaped. "By the Great Winds! You're one of the Sea Angels of Earth, aren't you?!" he exclaimed.

"If you mean I'm a shipgirl, yes I am, Lord Dockmaster," the battleship said.

He came over, then courtly kissed her hand before drawing up his tablet. "Your payment for docking privileges over the Capital District was a little too much given your ship's size and class," Teo then stated. "If you wish...?"

"Please, keep the change. I assume you'd like it de-cloaked?"

He smirked. "If you may?"

"Certainly." Roma then looked off to her right as her left ear twitched.

The air to the starboard of the Urusian battlewagon hazed before it melted into a light grey-and-medium blue mass over two kilometres long, it bearing the pendant number **21** written in poppy red on the hull below the main bridge. As the delegates gasped on seeing this replica of Roma's old hull with jet engines at the aft end where the propeller shafts would be and larger stabilizers jutting out from below the black stripe of the waterline, Teo hummed as he gazed upon NSI _Roma_ , then he stared at the readout on his screen. Ataru smirked as he saw Seq Yethis, Azu Des and several others of the Urusian delegation seethe at the fact that the Terran ship had been given a place closer to the council chambers than their own ship. Before any of them could comment, Teo nodded. "Italian Starship _Roma_ , unit of the United Nations Earth Defence Force, pendant number RI-CS-21, no intergalactic standard hull code due to the United Nations of Earth not being a signatory to that treaty. You are certified for day-long docking privilege at current altitude over the Capital District, Captain Ansaldo. My apologies for bothering you."

"It was my pleasure, Lord Dockmaster," Roma said with a bow of her head.

Noa smirked as she exchanged a look with Ataru. "Excuse me, Dockmaster-prime, but may I ask if there are ships now in orbit over the Capital District whose captains have NOT paid the proper docking fees to your office?" she then sweetly asked.

Teo perked, then he smiled. "Yes! As natural for them, the delegations under Senior General Yethis of Uru and President Fangi of Phentax Two never bother to pay ANYTHING to our offices! Given the threat of antimatter drive systems, it's only right to make sure there is equipment available to tow those things into space before such systems detonate if they fail...!"

Noa held up her hand. "Allow me, then. Henry!"

" _Certainly, Noa_ ," a cultured man's voice then echoed over the chamber.

People perked as they looked around for the source of that voice...

...then an outraged scream from Fangi made people look at him. " _ **HOW DARE YOU?!**_ " the president of the Union of Phentax Two shrieked as he pointed to the sky where _Roma_ was now floating serenely over the western suburbs of Rajdhani.

People turned to look...

...then howls of outrage escaped most of the Urusian delegation on noting two strong tractor beams were pulling both the battlewagon and what Ataru recognized as a Tsubasa-class destroyer — a starship two-thirds the size of a Kashin-class appearing to be a tiger-striped version of the Concorde — from behind _Roma_ and into orbit. As the other delegates gasped on seeing such a show of power by the most famous starship in space, Yethis spun on Ataru. " _ **HAVE THIS STOPPED NOW, MOROBOSHI! ORDER THAT THING TO PUT OUR SHIPS BACK! WE HAVE PERMANENT DOCKING PRIVILEGES...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

Cinder block to the head. "Wow! He's even more thickheaded than Kunō Tatewaki ever was!" Ataru said as Yethis was smashed down yet again into the floor in front of his seat while others quickly looked around for the source of those things.

"Darling! I think you're insulting that idiot Kunō by saying that Yethis is actually more of a FOOL than he is!" Lum protested from the gallery above, making people gaze up at the warlord's daughter, who had a smirk on her face.

As some of the Urusian delegation shuddered on seeing that the woman they saw as their future Empress was casting their spiritual leader in such a negative light in this very public forum, Roma cleared her throat. "Lord Dockmaster, do the Urusians or the Niphentaxians have such privileges as _**Mister**_ Yethis just claimed before my sister-in-law struck him down?"

Teo smirked as many of the Urusians delegates quaked at the battleship NOT using Yethis' rank title in public. "No, Lady Roma, they do not have such." He then blinked in confusion. "Your sister-in-law?" he then asked.

Roma smiled as she and Ataru pointed to the view screen at the aft end of the chamber, making all the delegates turn to look...

...then they gasped on seeing the girl who looked as if she could be Moroboshi Ataru's IDENTICAL TWIN SISTER now seated on the ledge underneath the view screen, calmly eating from her own bag of popcorn. As the details of her white-grey-and-black jumpsuit came clear — especially the black animal's head insignia on her chest over her cleavage — those gasps turned to whimpers and moans of underwear-soiling terror as they realized how far the man many across the Federation had disparaged as an idiot and sex-crazed fool was willing to go to see his planet kept safe and secure from outside invasion.

Some people were quick to note the ones NOT reacting to the presence of the current incarnation of the Trickster of the Show — outside Ataru, Roma and Noa, plus the Karasutengu delegation — were Ataru's would-be "wife" from Uru, her childhood friends seated close to her and the crown princess of Tahupraemiku who now served as the host of this meeting. "Um...Your Highness, you KNEW that Lady Coyote was here?" King Fuyu of Neptune then asked as he stared warily at Lupica.

"I did, Your Majesty," Lupica said, making many of the delegates croak in shock.

" _ **HEY!**_ "

Everyone jolted before they gazed up at the Trickster of the Show. "Enough of the screams, sames!" Ataru's adopted sister snapped, her brown eyes glowing with the cosmic power barely contained in her body. "It hurts my ears every time I hear that white noise! LEARNED people are now talking! The rest of you sames keep quiet...or I'll _**shut you up**_ real quick!"

Many people in the chamber shuddered in mortal terror at that threat...

* * *

 _ **Aboard THU**_ **Fubuki** _ **...**_

"Guys, get to your ships!"

All the destroyers looked at Fubuki. "What is it, Fujiko-chan?!" Mutsuki asked.

The lead of her class of destroyers grimaced. "The fear of the Yizibajohei is too well-ingrained among those people out there, Mutsuko-chan! If an idiot like that Yethis creep thinks Ataru-kun allowed Tariko-chan to exist to attack Uru...?!"

"Shit! Ataru-kun would be the first one targeted!" Akebono snarled.

The other destroyers nodded. "I'll get you beamed over," a new voice then said.

People looked at Asai Mayumi, a brainy-looking girl of about sixteen with glasses who was dressed in surplus Ground Self-Defence Force battle dress. She gave them a knowing smile while a deep thrumming noise echoed through the starship.

" _ **WARP SPEED!**_ " Shimakaze then shrieked.

Everyone looked at the blonde prototype destroyer, then they all screamed...

* * *

 _ **Rajdhani, that moment...**_

"Wh-wh-why...?"

That was a white-faced Azu Des, who was now staring in horror at the man who now seemed to personify the final ending of all the dreams the leaders of the Imperial Round of Uru had cultivated for over two centuries. "Why what?" Ataru asked.

The head of the Defence Intelligence Directorate shakily pointed to the living _**nightmare**_ that had haunted the dreams of BILLIONS of Urusians since the Mother of All Fight Scenes. "Wh-why unleash THAT?!" he then shrilled. "I know you only had a twin brother who disappeared when you were three! You have no sisters! Th-that...! Th-that...!" He stabbed his finger towards Tariko as he tried to articulate what was surging up and seizing his heart in a grip of neutronium. " _ **HOW?!**_ "

Ataru gazed at him, then he smirked. "Well, you can partially thank Lum up there..." — he pointed to his would-be "wife" — "...not to mention Cherry — you've heard of him, I think? — as well as the current Academician. Very nice lady from America!" He then stared at Fangi. "Not to mention the man you all decry as the 'arch-heretic'," he added with a trill in his voice.

The current president of the Niphentaxian Union blinked, then he spun about to point accusingly at Tariko. " _ **SEIZE THE SLAVE! IT HAS NO RIGHTS HERE! SEIZE IT NOW! WE'LL TAKE IT BACK AND MAKE IT BRING OUR SLAVES BACK!**_ "

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Nope! We're not helping you there, pal!"

Fangi gargled on noting that even his own people were staring in shock at him — while none of the security personnel in the room had moved at all towards the Trickster of the Show — then he glared at Shigaten Ebisu. " _ **WHY NOT?!**_ "

"Because if you're STUPID enough to go after _**Coyote**_ of all the metas on You Know Where, you're bucking for nothing but a trip to Bensaiten's Grave, you lifeless fool!" the vice-commandant of the Fukunokami central government snapped, making many of the delegates in the chambers shriek with laughter. "Damn! I knew you fools were lunatics, but to try THAT...?!"

"There's something else you have to keep in mind, Oji-san."

The short fireplug of a balding man gazed at Ataru. "What's that, son?!"

"Every time those sames insult an Avalonian, they're REALLY spitting on _**Shogai Dakejinzō**_!" the former Terran tag race champion said as he gazed in icy amusement at Fangi. "After all, we all know what Dake-cha is! Could you image what might happen if that ever got to _**Varanko**_?!" The smile turned lethal as all of Benten's people — said biker-babe included — turned as one to give the Niphentaxians lethal looks at their slight against Fukunokami's most famous adopted daughter.

The representatives of the Church of Lum in the chambers all whimpered in mortal dread as they imagined what Grand Duke Varanko of Kyotos, the most famous lawman in the local cluster, WOULD do to them if he perceived ANY such slight against his former student. Seeing that reaction, the other delegates save most of the Urusians laughed. "Well, that fella is going to have to get in a lineup, Ataru," Tariko then announced...before she tensed as her ears perked. "Uh-oh...!"

The whole chamber began to quake violently. "Darling! What's going on?!" Lum gasped as those who could fly got airborne while those who didn't have that capability tried their best to stay on their feet.

 _ **KK-KRANG!**_

"Looks like Tariko's friend decided to visit," Noa said as she crouched to ensure she didn't accidentally fall on her butt.

 _ **SSH-SHRANG!**_

" _ **OI! NOA! HE'S NOT MY FRIEND!**_ " Tariko shrieked in embarrassment.

 _ **KA-BOOM!**_

The doors leading from the antechamber exploded into kindling as the thunderous discharge of what sounded like a ship-sized shotgun went off. Of course, Ataru, Roma and Noa had already dived for the deck to avoid the hornet's nest of super-sharp flechettes that could have turned even the third Littorio-class battleship into a very bloody mist. Fortunately for all the delegates, the shooter wasn't the best marksman in the local cluster. Unfortunately, said flechettes ripped through the the chain holding up one of the lamps over the starboard-side seats, right above Yethis' head. That allowed the rather sizable ball to smash down onto his head, driving him into the floor! As the severed chain smacked Des in the side of the head to also put him into the land of Morpheus, a rather plain fellow with a bald head, narrow hunter's dark eyes and a build similar to what Ataru possessed gently stepped into the room, being as quiet as he could be on a marble surface. He was dressed in what appeared to be a mixture of the sleeveless form-hugging bodysuit design that modern Yizibajohei metas wore — it coloured in forest camouflage with dark brown boots and belt — with a black hunter's vest containing several rows of shells the size of 40 millimetre grenades in pouches front and back. A hat covered his head, looking like a mixture of a deerstalker and a soldier's boonie cap, it also in camouflage. In his hands was what looked like a Milkor revolver-type multiple grenade launcher.

Everyone — ESPECIALLY the guards! — all froze as that huntsman's glare raked over them...before they blinked as he pulled one hand away from his weapon to shush the crowd. "Be vesy quiet!" he said with a curious lisp in his voice. "I'm hunting coyoter." He then sniffed the air. "Ah! The sarcally coyote ir hese...!" Grinning in anticipation — and looking like a total maniac now to all of the shivering delegates in the chamber — he began to sweep his weapon around.

" _ **THERE! SHE'S UP THERE! SHOOT HER! SHOOT HER NOW!**_ "

As everyone gasped on hearing Fangi's shriek, the newcomer swept around to gaze at him. Seeing where the Niphentaxian president was now pointing, he spun around again to look up towards the aft main view screen...

" _ **HA-WA-WA-WA-WA-WA...!**_ " Inazuma wailed from the bridge of the DMR _Graf Zeppelin_.

Everyone turned to look...

...then people fell flat on their faces on seeing Moroboshi Tariko seated there in the dark blue Tomobiki High seifuku, sucking on a lollipop! Stopping himself just in time, the Eternal Hunter, _**Wyo'ona**_ (" _ **Cougar**_ "), immediately doffed his hat towards her. "I'm sossy, mirs!" he apologized in a rather meek voice. "I thought you wese a coyote!" He lunged over to grab Fangi by the collar of his jacket. "Why did you tell me rhe war a coyote, rame?!" he then snarled as his eyes glowed.

Tariko smirked as she secretly snapped her finger...

...which instantly turned Fangi's uniform into an approximation of the same model of battlesuit that the Trickster of the Show normally wore when she lived on Yiziba. As the president nearly soiled himself on realizing what the sister of the Great Evil just did to him, the man born Isona'a Naggu in the northern polar continent several decades ago howled in outrage before he stepped back and levelled his weapon on target. " _ **RAY YOUS PSAYESR, COYOTE!**_ " he shrieked.

" _ **HOLD IT!**_ "

Everyone froze before they spun on Noa. As the Niphentaxians all shuddered in relief on seeing the Elder Mother of Sagussa move to save their leader, she walked over and gazed intently into Isona'a's dark eyes. "What did you promise us?!"

He blinked in confusion, then he blushed. "Um, rossy, Mirs Noa!" he apologized as he doffed his hat at her while trying not to wilt at that admonishing stare. "I'll take him home and rhoot him these!" he promised.

Before Fangi could sense the danger to his very LIFE, the Eternal Hunter grabbed him by the jumpsuit top as he tapped a slate rectangle of mesonium that was secured to his belt over his left him. In a flash of teleportation energies, they vanished from the planet, the soon-to-be LATE president of Phentax Two shrieking for mercy while his countrymen all howled in horror at such a ghastly fate to befall their beloved leader as the other delegates all stared in disbelief at that.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Hey! I'm not into death scenes!" Tariko said as she snapped her fingers to change her seifuku back into her battlesuit.

The other delegates just gaped at her...

* * *

 _ **Aboard Tennō Heika Uchūkan**_ **Yūdachi** _ **, now in low orbit over Tōkyō, that moment...**_

Hoppō was now laughing as she shakily pointed a finger at the main view screen while a giggling Yūdachi was trying not to spill the cup of herbal tea that had been prepared for her by the bridge food replicator, using a formula that Moroboshi Negako had devised for shipgirls recovering from bad wounds while out at sea. "Stupid, stinky alien!" the installation princess snarled. "Hoppō hopes Mister Cougar doesn't have to use TOO much ammunition beating up the stupid, stinky alien!"

Yūdachi smirked as she tapped the dataPADD in front of the captain's chair. "Fujiko! Did anyone get Wanko-san aboard?"

"She's with me right now, Dachi-chan," Mutsuki replied from her namesake starship, which now hovered off to _Yūdachi_ 's port.

"Indeed I am, Yūdachi," a growling woman's voice echoed over the communications links from the bridge of THU _Mutsuki_ , that sound making the destroyers on their namesake starships grin. "I look forward to seeing these things in their own den."

"Warp speed...! Warp speed...! Warp speed...!"

" _ **QUIET, REVINA!**_ "

The destroyer shipgirls all giggled on hearing that delirious chant from Wanko's senior Re-class aviation battleship. "Didn't realize Revina-san was a Trekker herself," Yūdachi quietly mused. "Did you do that to her, Hoppō-chan?"

Hoppō nodded. "Revina thought it sad that Nimoy-sensei died two years ago," she quietly noted...before she gasped on hearing a wailing cry escape that particular aviation battleship. "Ah! Hoppō is sorry, Revina!" she cried out.

" _ **REVINA!**_ " Wanko shrilled in embarrassment.

As soothing sounds from _Mutsuki_ 's current engineer commander, Nagakura Emiru, the other destroyers snickered. "Oi! Let's get going! I wanna get there as quick as we can!" Akebono said from her namesake's bridge. "Tariko-chan can only hold the fort for so long before some shitty creep tries something on either Ataru-kun or Sempai! Oi, Fujiko! You ready to launch?!"

"Just doing that now, Akemi-chan," Fubuki announced. "Wanted to prepare a special present to that oni on Chichi-jima first."

The other destroyers hummed on hearing that...

* * *

 _ **Chichi-jima (eight hundred kilometres south-southeast of Tōkyō), that moment...**_

" _ **HOW DARE THEY?!**_ "

Shuddering in outrage at the fact that the foolish humans had somehow acquired the technology to go into space like the foul aliens who had infested Earth for years had done, the anchorage water demon that had taken over the largest of the Ogasawara-guntō could only seethe at the image being transmitted from NHK in Tōkyō, it showing the starship namesake of that perky destroyer Fubuki elevating itself out of the waters of the Sagami Sea. While the cheering crowds in the background nearly drowned out the field reporter's words from the beach at Ōiso, the Cannibal Island Oni — she called herself "Bonny" — could pick out some things. Something had happened that forced Fubuki and her friends — including a very noxious sextet of cheating Canadian destroyers who had the capability of launching HARPOONS and STANDARDS at her airborne and seaborne fighters whenever they engaged — to board their starship namesakes for some mission out in space...

Wait...

How many...?

Almost in answer, the reporter read from her iPad, " _...current ships now deploying in low orbit over Tōkyō, according to JAXA, includes Tennō Heika Uchūkan-tachi_ Mutsuki _,_ Kisaragi _,_ Yayoi _and_ Uzuki _of the Mutsuki-class; Tennō Heika Uchūkan-tachi_ Murakumo _,_ Hatsuyuki _,_ Shinonome _and_ Shirakumo _of the Fubuki-class; Tennō Heika Uchūkan_ Akebono _of the Ayanami-class; Tennō Heika Uchūkan-tachi_ Michishio _and_ Kasumi _of the Asashio-class; Tennō Heika Uchūkan_ Hatsukaze _of the Kagerō-class; ALL TEN of the Shiratsuyu-class space destroyers; Tennō Heika Uchūkan_ Shimakaze _and T'ong'il Konghwaguk Ujuham-dŭl_ Pongp'ung _,_ T'aekp'ung _,_ Ch'ungp'ung _and_ T'anp'ung _of the Shimakaze-class; United States Starships_ Johnston _,_ Hoel _and_ Heermann _of the Fletcher-class; Her Majesty's Canadian Starships_ Ottawa _and_ Assiniboine _of the Comet-class; Navire Interstellaire Canadien de Sa Majesté_ Gatineau _of the Electra-class; Her Majesty's Canadian Starship_ Saskatchewan _of the Fearless-class; Her Majesty's Canadian Starship_ Columbia _of the Wickes-class; and Her Majesty's Canadian Starship_ Algonquin _of the Venus-class. With Tennō Heika Uchūkan_ Fubuki _now launching from Ōiso..._ "

Hearing that, Bonny could only gape before she roared with laughter...

* * *

 _ **Aboard THU**_ **Fubuki** _ **, now flying past Izu-Ōshima...**_

"'D' Mount locked on target, Shipmistress," Asai Mayumi announced. "Firing solution is in the computer. Tube One is hot."

Fubuki nodded. "Launch the weapon."

Mayumi grinned as the faeries seated now on the shipgirl's shoulders all screamed in anticipation. "Missile away!" she barked as she tapped a red icon on the master weapons board, making the star destroyer shudder.

The port-side windows of the main pilotage glowed brightly as a very slender ninety metre-long mass leapt away from its mothership, racing off at many times the speed of sound to the south-southeast, sonic booms echoing in its wake...

* * *

 _ **Washington, the White House, that moment (local time: Dawn)...**_

"Jesus Christ! She just launched a missile!"

Heads in the Situation Room perked on hearing that from one of the junior Air Force officers there, then Josiah Bartlet turned to look. "Who just launched a missile, Captain?!" the president demanded as people took their seats.

"Starship _Fubuki_ just did, sir!" Admiral Percy Fitzwallace said as he looked at the computer graphics on the main screen. It now showed a view of the western Pacific as seen from low orbit. A target icon was now flying low over the waters of the Philippine Sea close to the Izu Islands, it marked **THU FUBUKI SDD-153** , heading in the general direction of Iō-tō in the Volcano Islands off to the south. Well in orbit overhead of that particular starship, thirty-six other target icons seemed to hover high in the sky over the namesake of the "flagship" of the Tin Can Mafia. An arrowhead icon indicating that a missile had been launched from THU _Fubuki_ was now racing away from its mothership right at Chichi-jima.

"What's the capability of that thing?!" Leo McGarry demanded.

"It's a dial-a-yield device, Leo," Nancy McNally stated. "Depending on the charge of the mesonium core inside that warhead, when the bauximite detonators go off, it can range from ten to fifty megatons of TNT equivalent...!"

"It's NOT a nuke?!" C.J. Cregg demanded from off to one side.

"No, C.J...!"

"Impact!" the Air Force captain screamed.

Everyone looked at the screen...

* * *

 _ **Chichi-jima...**_

" _...an alert from JAXA! Tennō Heika Uchūkan_ Fubuki _just launched a missile...!_ "

Bonny blinked on hearing that before her glowing eyes looked up...

...then she screamed as something raced from the sky right at her head!

* * *

 _ **Aboard**_ **Fubuki** _ **...**_

"Impact," Mayumi declared.

Hearing that, Fubuki took a deep breath as a distant bright flash reflected through the thick windows protecting the pilotage from the outside environment. She didn't look in the direction of Chichi-jima. Given all the hideous crimes that had been unleashed by the Cannibal Island Oni over the last half-decade and more, she didn't deserve that respect. "Yield?"

"Fifty megatons, Shipmistress. Air-burst detonation," the Terran-form Avalonian engineer stated as she tapped controls to retract the forward anti-ship missile mount into the hull and close the pressure doors, thus streamline the ship for intergalactic travel. "The force of the blast might cause a localized earthquake that could collapse part of the island into the Pacific, creating tidal waves, but the missile flew in from the north-northwest, thus making the explosive force echo to the south-southeast. Nothing very large in landmass is standing directly in the path of that blast before you get to Antarctica. Tsunamis might flow towards the East Indies and the western coast of South America eventually, but they'll be small."

Hearing that, the shipgirl nodded as her faerie crew held a moment of silence in grim contemplation of what had just been done. Unlike many Abyssal leaders, there had been no reason whatsoever to show mercy to the creature that had turned the largest of the Ogasawara Islands into a virtual charnel house; observations by subgirls of both Japan and America had long proven what that beast had done to unlucky sailors who had been caught by her forces over the years. Because of its actions, the government of the nation had reluctantly modified the Three Non-Nuclear Principles that had governed national defence policy since 1967. While still strictly outlawing the use or presence or acquisition of uranium-fuelled or plutonium-fuelled weapons anywhere in Japanese territory due to issues of radiation poisoning and proliferation, the government did accept the necessity of introducing ruby mesonium weapons to help destroy Abyssal installations that were directly threatening the very survival of the nation. Given what Fubuki and others had heard of the many attempts by Abyssals to use ebony mesonium weapons on humans worldwide, that stopped by the Ryūseizen and Canada's specialized warfare fighters...

A _beep!_ echoed over the communications link. " _Fujiko-chan?_ "

Fubuki gasped. "Heika?!"

" _It's alright_ ," the Heavenly Sovereign declared from his office in Kyōto. " _It had to be done, child. Absolve yourself of guilt._ "

Hearing that, the adopted native of Maizuru nodded. "I can see where Oppenheimer-hakase came from in the end, Heika."

" _Oh?_ "

"'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds'."

" _Always keep that in mind, child._ "

Fubuki nodded. "Hai, Heika...!"

* * *

 _ **Washington, the White House...**_

"Mister President?"

Josiah Bartlet sighed. Everyone in the Situation Room had overhead that communication between _Fubuki_ and Japan's head of state. "We say nothing specific about this incident," he declared as he stood, making others rise. He then gazed intently at C.J. Cregg. "If people ask, this was directly ordered by the Japanese government, C.J. Do not elaborate on it."

"Yes, sir," the press secretary affirmed with a nod...

* * *

 _ **Rajdhani on Tahupraemiku, a half-hour later...**_

" _...this just came in from our Tōkyō office_ ," the BBC announcer declared on the front view screen, the translation fields in the council chambers rendering those words in the native language of the listeners. As the graphics on the screen showed a very sleek starship version of the first true modern Earth wet-navy destroyer, the announcer said, " _The Japanese starship destroyer THU_ Fubuki _just fired a Type 93 Shinsedai anti-ship missile on Chichi Island in the Pacific Ocean about eight hundred kilometres south of Tōkyō thirty-two minutes ago at 6:33 PM Japan Standard Time; that is 9:33 AM Greenwich Mean Time. Said missile contained a bauximite-energized ruby mesonium core warhead with an explosive yield of 210 petajoules of energy, equivalent to fifty megatonnes of TNT, similar in destructive capacity to the infamous Tsar-bómba that was dropped on Nóvaja Zemljá on the thirtieth of October in 1961 by the Soviet Air Force. The missile struck the site of Ōmura village on Chichi Island, which is reported to be the headquarters of the infamous 'Cannibal Island Oni', an Abyssal anchorage water demon-type installation said to be responsible for the deaths of_ **five hundred thousand** _sailors, soldiers and innocent civilians across the western Pacific and the Philippines Sea in the last half-decade alone. The British ambassador in Kyōto..._ "

The volume was turned down as the eyes of everyone in the chamber turned to focus on the image of Gotō Kiichi now on the aft view screen. "I take it, Lord Admiral, you didn't expect your subordinate to use THAT sort of weapon on that creature," King Fuyu of Neptune mused as he gave the weary-looking Japanese officer a sympathetic look. "My niece Pukaze has regaled me with all the incredible tales of what destroyer shipgirls are capable of doing when they put their minds to it."

Gotō chuckled. " _You're far too kind, Your Majesty. Yes, the girls are all eager beavers, Fujiko-chan being one of the most eager of them all._ " As people in the chambers laughed at that observation, the commander of the Fleet Shipgirl Project for Japan added, " _And I must apologize to Chief Dockmaster Teo for being forced to deal with thirty-six star destroyers now coming into his area of operations like that. The standing orders are concerning capital ships..._ "

"Pay it no mind, Lord Admiral," the elderly dockmaster said before indicating Aruka Noa. "The Great Lady Noa here was happy to arrange to pay for day docking privileges for all of Lady Roma's escorts. Still, I must confess, _**thirty-six**_...?!"

" _In that, feel lucky, sir._ "

Laughter filled the hall...

...before the sound of a materializer — it sounded quite similar to the transporter effect in the original _Star Trek_ series — echoed through the hall, allowing a slender girl of about thirteen to appear. Unlike her elder half-sister, Ch'ungp'ung wore the haze grey sleeveless skinsuit which design the Koreans borrowed from the Canadians, her hull classification symbol number **924** in black-shaded white on her upper thighs. She was blonde and blue-eyed like Shimakaze, but the destroyer known to friends as Sŭng Nayŏn had a hairband bearing the national flag of her adopted people and she had the Korean red-and-blue t'aeguk symbol of the Universe on her left breast opposite her name tape. Her sea boots were the same sort of high-heels that her elder half-sister wore, though coloured medium blue with black trim, reflecting modern non-fouling paint. " _ **ANNYŎNG!**_ " the adopted native of P'ohang called out as she waved her hands in a victory dance. " _ **CH'UNGP'UNG, DOCKED!**_ "

Most of the delegates cheered as four more destroyers beamed down right beside the just-arrived third of what were known as the "Pongp'ung-class" in Korea. "Ah! Nayŏn-a! Meanie!" T'anp'ung snapped. "You cheated somehow!"

"No, no, Naŭn-a!" Shimakaze quickly cut in. "Nayŏn-a didn't cheat! She was just faster to give the command to go to warp!"

That made the fourth of the Pongp'ung-class perk before she blushed, then she looked away. "Mianhaeyo...!"

"They got here THAT fast...?"

That was a wide-eyed Shigaten Ebisu. " _ **WARP TWENTY!**_ " Shimakaze and her half-sisters all then whooped.

" _ **BEAT THAT, BELLE!**_ " Shimakaze herself then roared out.

As her sisters cheered and shocked cries of disbelief echoed through the chamber, Lupica quickly used the room lights to get everyone's attention and calm the diplomats down. Teo took the chance to approach the destroyers and assign parking spaces for them. Soon enough, TKU _Ch'ungp'ung_ and TKU _T'anp'ung_ appeared to NSI _Roma_ 's port side, where Seq Yethis' command ship had been parked until it had been removed from over Rajdhani by the Gatherer. At the same time, TKU _Pongp'ung_ , TKU _T'aekp'ung_ were docked in the space that had been taken by the Niphentaxians' destroyer while THU _Shimakaze_ was docked to _Roma_ 's starboard. Seeing that, a nearly-apoplectic Azu Des bolted to his feet as he pointed at the just-arrived shipgirls. " _ **MOVE THOSE INFERNAL MACHINES, LESSERS! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO DOCK THERE...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KLONK!**_

"Knock it off, same!" Moroboshi Tariko called out from her place near the aft view screen after Des got brained by yet another cinder block. "We can hear you clear enough! Who says a same like you is 'greater' than someone like these nice girls?!"

Shimakaze's Korean sisters all blushed cutely at the compliment just paid to them by the Trickster of the Show. As many of the delegates all laughed at that comment, a voice then hissed out, "Fool...do you think you'll WIN...?!"

That was a shuddering and visibly bleeding Seq Yethis, who was slowly getting to his feet. "General, please! Calm down!" Redet Negau then pleaded. Ataru was quick to sense that she didn't really care for the man and would gladly wish him dead, but she had a rôle to play here. "You're suffering from a severe head wound thanks to one of the You Know Whos...!"

"Wow...!"

People perked, then they looked towards the wrecked doors leading to the antechamber beyond the main hall...

...before they gasped on seeing the three white-skinned humanoid females standing there, one looking like a pre-teen; one a sheer giant of a woman with long, flowing silver hair on her head, a unicorn-like horn over the bridge of her nose and huge clawed hands; and a more regular-looking woman in a black bikini with a lizard-like tail ending in a gun-like emplacement. As many of the people there croaked on seeing three living examples of the dark creatures of the depths that had plagued the humans of Earth for several decades before they became publicly known five years before, the little one nodded. "This place makes Hoppō think of the Great Hall at Onii-chan's school," she declared. "Lots of lights and a nice high ceiling...!"

"Indeed," Wanko mused. "A pity such a beautiful place of gathering has the stench of foul _**monsters**_ within it." Her burning eyes first focused on the Niphentaxians in the room, then she gazed upon the Urusian representatives. As Ataru secretly winked to Lum in reassurance, the harbour princess queen of the Timor Sea then smirked. "I know you...!"

Her clawed finger pointed right at Seq Yethis. That made the shipgirls and Ataru all blink in surprise before he snapped his fingers, his jaw dropped in shock. "Wait! Are you saying that alien baby-kidnapper you told Onē-san about...?"

"Is kin to this pathetic creature," Wanko snarled, her pointed teeth glittering in the lights as Yethis gaped in stunned shock at her. "Indeed, Herald of the Prince of Eternity, you are right! I remember dear Kaga actually KILLING the thing for his attempt at trying to take away hungry children to serve as SLAVES on his home planet!" As many of the delegates gasped on hearing that, the harbour princess' right hand retracted into the puffy sleeve covering the opposite arm, then pulled out something that was wrapped in bandages with stained blood at the base. With a contemptuous fling of her clawed fingers, she sent it flying over into the Urusian general's hands while many of the people in the chamber blanched on realizing that Wanko had brought the severed head of an Oni-Urusian man into this meeting, an act that would cause an instant meltdown.

He didn't disappoint them.

" _ **YOU MURDERED MY**_ **SON** _ **?!**_ " Yethis shrieked after catching the head, instantly confirming by the package's general shape and the position of the horn buds peeking through the bandages whose head it was. " _ **YOU ANIMAL...!**_ "

 _ **KA-BOOM!**_

As many of the delegates screamed in shock at that explosion, a VERY familiar man's voice bellowed out, " _ **YOU TSICKED ME, YOU SARCALLY COYOTE! RAY YOUS PSAYESR, YOU RCSEWBALL SEALITY-WASPES!**_ "

" _ **HELP ME, LUM-SAMA! SAVE ME FROM THIS HORRIBLE MONSTER...!**_ "

 _ **KK-KRASH!**_

"Hey! How the hell did you escape _**Yiziba**_ of all places, you jackass?!" Tariko demanded after a cinder block smashed down a badly beaten Fangi t'ndai-Marthon, who had been running for his life when he teleported back to Tahupraemiku.

As many in the crowd around them shrieked on yet again hearing THAT word, a huffing Eternal Hunter charged into the chamber, instantly spinning around to level his revolver grenade launcher at his nemesis' head. " _ **YOU TSICKED ME!**_ "

His finger moved to squeeze the trigger. " _ **KILL HER!**_ " Yethis shrieked as mad laughter took his voice. " ** _KILL THE LESSERS AROUND YOU, GREAT HUNTER! KILL THEM ALL AND ALL OF THE UNIVERSE IS FINALLY_** **OURS** ** _!_** "

Isona'a Naggu instantly paused on hearing that, then he glared at the frothing Oni general, who had begun to howl with delight at the idea of one of the most dangerous beings on the planet of the Seeker's Forge wiping out all the class traitors, lessers and other unworthy being standing in the way of a conquest of the local cluster by the reborn Urusian Empire. "You be quiet, rame!" he snarled, making the other Urusian delegates squawk in fear as that lethal weapon in the Eternal Hunter's hand began to swing in their direction while other delegates ducked. "You'se intesrupting the fight rcene with that laugh!"

"Indeed, it is no wonder, Oh Hunter, that your quest for victory is mocked by these creatures!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

Isona'a blinked before he gazed up at Wanko. His nose flared for a second before he politely doffed his hat to her. "You rmell like the rea! You murt be one of thore Abyrsalr I heasd about! What ir a psetty lady like you doing among there rames?!" That comment instantly earned him a deep blush from the harbour princess. "Erpecially with yous nice little rirter hese?"

Hoppō blushed at being called "nice" by this rather wacky representative of what was "normal" for one born of the World of the Seeker's Forge. "Oh, just returning the head of this creature's son..." Wanko began, earning her a shriek from Yethis.

" _ **MURDERER!**_ " the senior general bellowed as he pointed at Wanko.

"He's a BASTARD SON, by the way!"

That was a smirking Redet Lum, which made many of the delegates gasp as they looked her way. " _ **YOU BE QUIET, YOU DISOBEDIENT GIRL!**_ " Yethis howled. " ** _YOUR TREASON AGAINST YOUR CLASS BY TRYING TO MATE WITH A_** **LESSER** ** _WILL_** **NEVER** ** _BE FORGOTTEN! YOU'LL BECOME EMPRESS, THEN MATE WITH MY SON AND BIRTH THE FIRST TRUE EMPEROR OF THE REALM SINCE SYL'S TREASON! ALL OF EARTH WILL BE ENSLAVED TO THE REALM...!_** "

 _ **KK-KRACK!**_

That was Ataru's hand nearly breaking Yethis' neck with the force of a backhanded slap that could have shattered a boulder. As the general collapsed to the floor, the former Terran tag race champion shook his head. "Now that I shook what little _**brains**_ you have in your head back into place, I have a question: How in Lyna's name can Lum mate with a CORPSE?!"

Dead silence followed.

"Didn't think so!" Ataru snarled. "I think these good people here have had enough of you! Not to mention the good people back on Uru and all the colonies that have had to put up to the constant interference of you and your friends throw up when they try to make their lives better!" He shook his head. "The six months I spent on Okusei learning all about the politics of your planet really does come in handy! _**Madame Windtalker, would you kindly reveal yourself, please?!**_ " he called out.

As he looked aft, others turned to look...

...then they gaped on seeing a red-haired Japanese woman with chestnut brown eyes, currently in an urban camouflage-like jumpsuit of the same cut as Tariko's and Isona'a's, who was currently seated beside Ataru's adopted sister, a complex video camera recorder unit in hand. "Meet the Voice of the Great Show of Life," he introduced the current incarnation of _**Bo'odurba**_ (" _ **Windtalker**_ "), whom the shipgirls automatically recognized as Asakura Kazumi, one of the many girls who had been in Negi Springfield's homeroom class for two years before and during Blood Week when he discovered the process by which the spirits of warships from years past could be summoned to fight the Abyssals. "While you and your idiot allies down the row from here were making total fools of themselves here, I asked her to RECORD this, then get it transmitted back to your home planets and all their colonies!" As Yethis looked ready to laugh right into his face, Ataru shook his head. "Before you claim the censors monitoring INN transmissions from here through the Warp Chamber back to Uru are going to cut out all the interesting bits, you better know that her power ALSO includes the ability to break past ANY form of electronic censorship!" He shook his head as most of the Urusian delegates gaped in horror. "So since I can now sense that the people in this chamber have had their fill of your diarrhea, say 'Good night, Gracie!'" He leaned up to glare into Yethis' face. "To quote Ten that one time with that ghost goat on Mendō's pad: 'Have a nice _afterlife_!'" As the general gasped, Ataru leaned back. "Now, Henry!"

" _Done, Ataru._ "

People gasped as the Urusian delegation save Negau disappeared in a shower of materializer energy. "Sorry about that," Ataru then apologized. "Hope you didn't leave anything precious behind on that ship, Negau-san."

"On THAT ship?! Not in a million years, Ataru!" Lum's adopted sister declared with a laugh.

People in the chamber exchanged looks as they tried to understand what was going on, then they all stared once more at Lum's adopted sister. "You're setting them up to _**die**_?" Wanko demanded, making many of the Niphentaxians croak.

"Well, isn't it a pity that ALL of Yethis' friends decided to come here together so they could press for the extermination of ALL your kind, ALL your opponents, ALL the metahumans and ALL the magicals on your planet. All via an endless filibuster debate, Miss Wanko," Negau stated as she moved to take her place as the ONLY Urusian delegate in the chambers now.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Why...?"

That was a white-faced Fangi, who was staring in horror at his goddess' beloved adopted sister. "It's none of your business, but I'll answer you anyway," Negau sneered out at him. "It was long since time to clean out the _**trash**_ back home."

She then held out a data chip for Lupica to take. As the crown princess of Tahupraemiku moved to confirm what was there with the computer terminal built into the lectern, Ataru then gazed over at Teo, who had placed himself close to Shimakaze. "Oh, Chief Dockmaster, there just might be an in-system collision between that ship and...!"

" _ **HEY! WHO MOVED THAT PIECE OF JUNK IN FRONT OF MY BOW?! DAMNED SUNDAY HELMSMEN!**_ "

"...HMCS _Assiniboine_ ," Ataru finished with a wince. "You okay, Erica-san?!"

" _Yeah, Ataru, I'm fine! Ship's fine, too!_ " the voice of the former flotilla leader of the C-class destroyers built during the years of the Great Depression called back, said being relayed into the chamber thanks to the Gatherer's systems. " _Lucky thing the engineer on this ship turned on the structural integrity field and put it to full max when we were in warp! Some dumb fool moved their junk heap of a spaceship right into the approach lane to take to assume orbit over the damned planet! Don't people read the rules of the damned road when they drive their ships around a planet, for God's sake?!_ "

"You _murderer_...!"

That was Fangi, who was staring in mortal dread at Ataru. "On the contrary, Mister President," Teo spoke up. "Indeed, it's been a miracle that the helm officers of certain Urusian starships are still accredited to pilot their ships in sub-light conditions! The arrogance of such people — which I'm sure Lady Captain Negau might confirm might ALL be of the same political leanings as the _late_ General Yethis and his friends — is truly staggering to behold at times. I'll have to ask for...er, her name?"

"Lieutenant Commander Erica Caslon of the Royal Canadian Navy, Lord Dockmaster," Roma supplied. "Lady Assiniboine of Winnipeg, formerly Lady Kempenfelt of Westminster and Cowes in the Royal Navy."

"Ah, thank you, Lady Roma. I'll ask for a copy of Lady Assiniboine's flight recorders to analyze what happened. I'll need a copy of the Gatherer's sensor logs as well, Lady Noa." Teo winked. "Just to make it proper."

"Of course, Dockmaster-prime," Noa vowed with a bow of her head.

" _Oh, God! I'm gonna get_ _ **court-martialled**_ _!_ " Assiniboine moaned out.

"Relax, Erica-san! I'll get Onē-san to square it off with Admiral Harlan and General Raeburn."

A moaned gasp of relief escaped the former flotilla leader. " _Thanks, man...!_ "

"You _**murderer**_...!" Fangi hissed out again. "Lum-sama, how could..,you allow him to...get away with this...?"

Lum shook her head. "Darling is the _**Chosen One of the Eternal Voyager**_ , you pathetic pedophile!" she snarled, making many in the crowd whoop in delight on hearing her say that in public. "Chosen by _**Aruka Noa**_ herself!" she said as she pointed to the Elder Mother of Sagussa. "Oh, yes, I would have loved to be Darling's wife once I finally earned his trust and he came to love me! He was WAY more of a man to me that Ōgi or Rei or Shūtarō or Megane-san or any of the other prospects that I had...!"

" _ **HEY!**_ " Aruka Ran snapped as she glared at her rival.

"Ran-chan, please! Not NOW!" Ataru hissed out.

"Quiet, Ran! If you want someone who might EAT you one day, you can damn hell have him!" Lum shrilled, making Ran duck as both Shigaten Benten and Oyuki gaped in horror at their friend. She then took a deep breath as she gazed on Roma. "As I told Okiku-san when I left Tomobiki, Roberta-san. Please take care of him." She turned away. "Excuse me...!"

With that, she flew out through a side door, immediately followed by her friends. " _ **LUM-SAMA...!**_ " Fangi screamed.

" _ **YOU PEDOPHILER! CHARING AFTES NIRE GISLR LIKE THAT! RAY YOUS PSAYESR, RAMES!**_ "

The Niphentaxians all screamed out as Isona'a levelled his weapon at them...

...then they all vanished in a flash of light, as did the Eternal Hunter himself!

Silence fell over the scene, then Tariko sighed as Kazumi cut the transmission on her video camera recorder. "Well, at least he remembered to take them home before he went and shot them," the Trickster of the Show then noted.

"Hope he recognized that one Avalonian in the group," the Voice of the Show declared.

As people broke out in laughter on hearing that, Ataru smirked. "I'm hungry!" he then said. "We didn't have supper!"

"Lucky thing I've got such a nice galley to work with now," Roma noted.

"Let's go try it out!" he mused. "Oi! Girls! Replenishment time!"

As the destroyers all cheered on hearing that, they moved to leave the chambers while many of the delegates there all rose to applaud. Stopping in front of his other would-be "wife", Ataru's eyes narrowed as the left one glowed. " **You might need to elect a new queen very soon, Babara** ," he then declared, his voice ringing out over the whole chamber, which made people pause. " **I don't care to be even friends with someone whose** _ **strings**_ **are being pulled from** _ **somewhere else**_ **.** "

As Elle gasped in shock on hearing that cold declaration from him, Ataru offered his arm to Roma as they walked out, followed by the destroyers and the three Abyssals who had come with the destroyers to Tahupraemiku...

 _ **To Be Continued...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

For those who don't understand the whole concept behind the _Daishi'cha_ ("great first mothers") of Sagussa, please read the "Great Father Ataru" segment of _The Senior Year_. It was also in _TSY_ that I came up with the concept of Queen **Elle** having a different birth name; in my stories, she was born **Amora de Rosenbach** , assuming the regal name "Elle" on ascending to the throne. She is the sixty-forth Rose Queen of the Kingdom of Elle, her predecessors having used the same regal name since the time of its establishment a millennia ago. It was also in _TSY_ that **Shogai Dakejinzō** and **Varanko** were introduced, the former appearing first in "Arrive Reiko-chan" and the latter in "Ancient Ties".

Translation list: **Daite'cha** — Literally "first above all" but normally translated "first citizen", this is the position title assumed by Sagussa's head of state; **Nave Stellare Italiana** — Italian Starship (short-form **NSI** ); **'Amīr** — Normally transliterated as "Emir" and meaning "commander" or "prince", this is a noble title in the Arabic world that is often applied to sovereign princes of states such as Kuwait; **Ogasawara-guntō** — The proper name for the **Bonin Islands** extending from Tōkyō towards Iō-tō and the other Volcano Islands ( **Kazan-rettō** ), forming the eastern border of the Philippine Sea; **T'ong'il Konghwaguk Ujuham** — Star Warship of the United Republic (of Korea) (short-form **TKU** ); **-dŭl** — Korean version of the Japanese "-tachi" plural ending; **Navire Interstellaire Canadien de Sa Majesté** — Her Majesty's Canadian Starship (short-form **NCSM** ); **JAXA** — Short for **Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency** , the space research institution of Japan; **Shinsedai** — Next generation; **Annyŏng** — Short for **annyŏng haseyo** ("peace be with you"), the standard Korea polite greeting; **Mianhaeyo** — I'm sorry; **INN** — Intergalactic News Network; **CT** — Short for **Contre-Torpilleur** ("Anti-Torpedo [Boat Destroyer]"), the French Navy ship prefix for the large destroyers constructed to serve that country in the inter-war period.

Explaining NSI _Roma_ 's pendant code **RI-CS-21** :

 **RI** — **Repubblica Italiana** ("Italian Republic")  
 **CS** — **Corazzata Spaziale** ("Space Battleship")  
 **21** — The twenty-first battleship built in Italy from **RM** _ **Ammiraglio di Saint Bon**_ (served 1901-20); in this case, the hull number is transferred from the surface ship to the space ship.

The class names used for many of the Canadian destroyers mentioned here were chosen because letter names had been used by their original builders in Britain and there were multiple classes using the same letters, causing confusion. The "Comet-class destroyers" are the **C-class destroyers** built in 1930; the follow-on C-class destroyers that came out in 1943 are known as the "Caprice-class destroyers" in this story. The "Electra-class destroyers" are the **E-class destroyers** built in 1933. The "Fearless-class destroyers" are the **F-class destroyers** built at the same time as the E-class and built roughly to the same design; the two classes are often known as "E and F Class" in combination. The "Venus-class destroyers" are the **V-class destroyers** built in 1941. There was an earlier V-class destroyer with ships still in active service that were built in 1916; these ships would be known in public as the "Valentine-class destroyer". The American-built **Wickes-class destroyers** mentioned here were, in British Commonwealth terminology, combined with the follow-on **Clemson-class destroyers** as a unified "Town-class destroyer" due to the naming practice once they were transferred to the Royal Navy and affiliate services. In the universe of this story, ships such as **HMCS** _ **Columbia**_ ( **Shawna O'Brien** ) are classified by the original class name.

Shipgirl introduced in this part:

 _ **FRANCE  
**_ **CT Le Terrible** — Françoise Belle de la Chapelle

 _ **JAPAN  
**_ **THG Uzuki** — Kisaragi Utako  
 **THG Murasame** — Hamamoto Momoko  
 **THG Samidare** — Hamamoto Sanako  
 **THG Umikaze** — Hamamoto Umeko  
 **THG Kawakaze** — Hamamoto Kawako

* * *

 **OMAKE  
** _ **A PONY VISITS THE FEDERATION  
**_ by Baran3

Including characters and situations from _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ , created by Lauren Faust.

The character of **Silver Dawn** is Baran3's own creation.

 **Note:** This is set during the first scene of Part Twenty-Eight

* * *

 _ **Rajdhani on Tahupraemiku, the Council Chambers of the Galactic Federation of Planet-states,**_ _ **the 29th Day of the Eighth Month,**_ _ **noon (Tōkyō time: Friday 26 May, supper)...**_

Standing now in the main aisle between the delegate seats, Moroboshi Ataru, his wife Roma and Aruka Noa all blinked as their senses detected a pattern of magical energy slowly building up in the antechamber at the aft end of the meeting hall. Thanking the fates and his own master's benevolence that his "mangled" face masked him wanting to smirk; some people here would have a heart attack on realizing who was about to visit. The Elder Mother of the Fifth Republic of Sagussa had a Mona Lisa smile on her face while the third of the Littorio-class battleships decided that "borrowing" some popcorn from Ataru's currently-masked sister Tariko — now perched under the aft view screen — was required for what should happen...

 _Now!_

The electronic announcer — which was NEVER used by most galactic representatives — then coughed a little, drawing the eyes towards the main door, making many of the people there blink in confusion.

" _ **Announcing Her Royal Highness, Princess Silver Dawn of Equestria, Alicorn of Hope!**_ "

The massive doors swung open, revealing a very beautiful equine standing five feet at the shoulders, possessing a silky creme coat, silver mane and tail, bright and all-seeing emerald eyes peeking out from her well-shaped head. A simple circlet of silver and a peytral of gold, marked with her cutie mark of the seven-coloured rainbow, were the only visible signs of her royalty if one didn't first note her Pegasus-type wings and the single horn spiralling up from her forehead.

Seeing this being, a visibly apoplectic Seq Yethis was instantly on his feet before the door was completely open. " _ **WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?!**_ " the chief of staff to the Urusian head of state shrieked at the top of his lungs. " _ **THIS CREATURE IS NOT EVEN OF OUR**_ **PLANE OF EXISTENCE** _ **! SHE DOESN'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO...!**_ "

He was suddenly making much wind from his mouth without any sound to continue assaulting the other delegates' ears. An emerald halo around his throat and the pearl horn of the Alicorn revealed the reason why.

The Alicorn turned a critical eye towards the would-be crown prince from Uru. " _Mister_ Yethis," she said with a touch of scorn in her voice. "The acoustics of this chamber enable anypony to be heard by everypony without the necessity of _**screaming**_ like a spoiled foal. I would remind you that you represent your people and that your manners reflect on the image of your Union. However, you have the right to ask the reason of my presence and my right to be heard by your peers."

The Equestrian pony princess gracefully trotted to the centre of the meeting hall, smiling at the detailed rendition of the Milky Way galaxy embedded in the floor before she turned to gaze upon the delegates there. Among the humanoids in the group, some were smiling, others scowling, a few were scared but all were waiting for her explanation. The true aliens in the lot all reacted as if they were more than happy to have Silver Dawn grace them with her presence.

"The eyes of many Entities beyond this plane of existence are aware of the events here. Many of these Powers are interested in how you are all going to solve them. Harmony and Hope have guided me here because the Hope of many people in your galaxy are concerned and Harmony wants to know an important point." Silver Dawn bowed to the reborn elder of the Maidens of Aruka. "I apologizes in advance to your people and the Avalonians because of the nature of this question, Elder Mother."

"No apologies are necessary, Your Highness," Noa affirmed with a bow of her own.

Whispers echoed in the background, that interspersed with attempts at screamed questions or other means to block procedure. Unfortunately for the hecklers, Silver Dawn came prepared; she had ASKED for permission before entering this dimension and this very planet. Eyes immediately locked on their host at the head of the room. Lupica had been consulting a few galactic law texts to be sure while the Alicorn introduced herself; nodding in acceptance, she bade the visitor to continue.

To the stupefaction of many in the room and the silent dread of few, Silver Dawn then turned to gaze upon Fangi t'ndai-Marthon. "Mister Fangi, my question is for you and your 'Church of Lum'," she said with a barely masked smile.

The older lookalike of Aisuru Satoshi rose from his seat, looking ready to unleash an angry, derogatory rant. He was stopped when he noted that the eyes of the Alicorn were... _ **glowing**_ with barely contained power? Gulping as he suppressed a shiver behind an arrogant sneer, he bit out, "Ask your question, 'Princess'." That title had almost been spat out. "However, do remember that YOU are also subject to the same limitations that you just advised Senior General Yethis."

As Yethis grinned on noting his "ally" was willing to support him against this creature, Silver Dawn nodded. "I am not asking for the veracity of your faith. I know about the continuing existence of the 'gods' of other faiths on your planet. I even had the pleasure of encountering Elvis Presley at the 'Bar at the Corner of the Multiverse'." As many of the older Niphentaxians gasped on hearing that, she smiled. "A remarkable 'King of Rock'. Very friendly..." She caught herself. "My question is about a point of your current beliefs. Your people wrote and said — even _**screamed**_! — that Moroboshi Ataru is the 'Great Evil', the living avatar of everything negative and malicious in your perception of your reality, correct?"

Fangi was flabbergasted. Many of the representatives here were also surprised by the question. Ataru himself, who had allowed the cold fire to transform him to normal, bit back a chuckle as he understood the precise question of the Alicorn.

"What...?! Buh...! You...?! YES! ATARU is...!" Fangi then cleared his throat. "Hum...sorry about my outburst...!" A terrifying grin then crossed his face. "YES!" he screamed out. "Moroboshi Ataru IS the Great Evil!"

"Very well, then. Where is your proof?"

Silence answered the Alicorn's question.

Roma could almost swear she was hearing a cricket nearby...

 _ **Fin**_


	29. A Triple Serving of Omake

**_DISCLAIMER:_ _Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the_ Copyright Act _(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration._**

* * *

 **OMAKE  
** _ **SHINANO MEETS THE CORPS OF AIR CAVALRY**_

Inspired and including situations from the chapter "Subterfuge" in _Belated Battleships_ , written by theJMPer; and _More Things Involving Shipgirls That Are No Longer Allowed_ , created by CV12Hornet.

 **Note:** This omake occurs two years before the start of the main story in Part One.

* * *

 _ **The Strait of Juan de Fuca, passing Victoria on Vancouver Island, Saturday 15 August 2015, mid-afternoon...**_

"Ah! We're free of that storm! Thank the Kami!"

Hearing that exclamation from the flagship of the Second Carrier Division, New Jersey smirked as she pointed towards the small expanse of sea immediately west of Smith Island. On reaching that point east of southeast from British Columbia's nearly-deserted capital city, the convoy of empty merchant ships would break apart into two groups, one heading into Puget Sound and Seattle, the other going into the Strait of Georgia and Vancouver. There, the next big load of materials and food for Japan were waiting on miles of rail cars, having been shipped from across America and Canada ready for the many hungry mouths that needed those supplies on the other side of the Pacific. "Yeah, Hiyoko! Not that I didn't mind the damned shower...!" the second of the Iowa-class mused as she gazed back at the largest carrier in the formation. "You okay there, Shinno?" she called out to the third of the Yamato-class. "Waves weren't too rough when we came in, were they?"

Shinano perked on hearing that question, then blushed as she shook her head, a demure smile crossing her face. To either side of her, the smiling frigates who formed the main striking force of the Toronto Argonauts — the nickname for the Sixth Canadian Escort Group — all shared giggles. "You have to give her credit for guts, Commander," Toronto said as she made hand signals to the commodore on the lead container ship to prepare for the breakup of the convoy in the next hour or so. "Even if she is a Yamato-class in base design, she was having a rough time of it as we got into the lee of the island. Lucky thing that bottle of purser's rum that I carry in my chief's mess helped get her through most of the seasickness."

"Feh! Nothing like the North Atlantic in wintertime," Swansea noted.

"We'll, we're glad you guys were willing to come over from Québec City to help with the latest convoys," White Plains noted as she kept a close eye on her favourite student. "Now, where's that extra air escort we were promised...?"

The carriers' eyes all turned skyward. "Pity Freida-chan wasn't here with us," Sōryū noted. "Then again, too many of us are busy getting restocked and refitted. Wasn't your sister coming out to meet up with us, Sensei?"

Plains hummed. "You gotta remember, Sei, she's not really my sister. I'm Casablanca-class, she's Bogue-class. They were all built for the British even if Shannon and Holly — Puncher and Nabob — all got Canadian crews."

"And they have Canadian aircraft now! Remember that!" Runnymede noted from ahead of Jersey.

" _ **URK!**_ "

Shinano looked over. "Sempai-tachi, daijōbu?!"

Jersey looked back to see wary masks on the faces of both carriers of Division Two. "Oi! Tatsu-tachi!" That was her nickname for Sōryū and Hiryū when they were together. "What's with the seasick looks?! You guys took those waves way better than Shinno did and she's got double your displacement! What's wrong?!" She then perked on seeing the two older fleet carriers turn an interesting shade of grey while they took wary looks around. "What the holy fuck...?!"

Nearby, Toronto giggled, then she began whistling a very strange tune, which made the others of the Eighth Escort Group hearing this all giggle in anticipation; they had discovered the secret phobia of the elite carriers of the Kidō Butai when they visited Eta-jima after getting the last major convoy over to Japan from North America. Given that Zuikaku had bribed them with provisions of the best sake to do this, the namesake of Canada's largest city could only smirk in anticipation.

" _ **NO! THEY'RE COMING FOR US...!**_ "

That was a decidedly green Hiryū, who had notched empty air in her daikyū as she looked wildly around for the dark kami of the sky who had swarmed over her at Midway to allow the avenging angels from Yorktown and Enterprise to wreck her, they making sure there were no survivors of her air group to protect her when the SBDs all swept in to make the final kill of the battle. " _ **DON'T PANIC, HIYOKO! DON'T PANIC!**_ " Sōryū shrieked, she also holding nothing in her bow. " _ **THEY...!**_ "

The distant drone of engines echoed from the north.

Both elder fleet carriers squawked as their eyes spun in that direction just as Jersey's radar locked on target. "Hmm...a regiment, huh? I thought the little Canuck flattops only flew a couple squadrons' worth of Humpers."

"' _ **REGIMENT?!**_ '" Sōryū and Hiryū shrieked together.

Both carriers began to sob as they grasped each other, dropping to their knees as they skewed out of formation towards the south. "HEY!" Lingabar snapped as she dodged around the two half-sisters. "Watch where you're going, you road hogs!"

" _ **HEY! GET THE FUCK BACK IN FORMATION...!**_ " Jersey snapped.

"What kawaii airplanes...!"

Everyone stopped, then they gaped in surprise at Shinano, who was now looking at the formation of _**eighty**_ aircraft now sweeping over the convoy from the direction of Canadian Forces Base Comox...

* * *

 _ **Deadman's Island in Vancouver, HMCS**_ **Discovery** _ **, Sunday 16 August, after breakfast...**_

"Alright, Commander Clark, let's hear it."

Jersey tried not to wince as she watched Toronto stand in front of Admiral Samuel Williams' counterpart as the leader of Canada's Pacific naval forces chewed her out for making work for Cape Breton helping two Japanese fleet carriers recover from a nice PTSD episode. Keeping herself calm, the current commander of the Sixth Escort Group stated, "Revenge, sir. As assisted by Commander Matsubara the younger in vengeance over what they did to Lieutenant Commander Bidwell, sir."

Rear Admiral Scott Bowman's silver eyebrow arched as he gave the adopted native of Canada's largest city a very piercing look, which made Jersey wince as she imagined what the two-star in charge of Maritime Forces Pacific would do now. Then-Captain (Navy) Bowman had been Commander of the Fourth Maritime Operations Group, operational force of the Canadian Pacific Fleet, at the Second Battle of Iō-tō three years before, a week before the first shipgirls appeared at the Battle of Tōkyō Bay thanks to Negi Springfield and his friends from Meridiana summoning Kongō and her sisters. Capt(N) Bowman survived that holocaust thanks to his flagship's helicopter detachment flying him off the sinking _Vancouver_ and getting him to safety on Iō-tō itself before he would have been lost with the rest of his fleet and most of their crews; helping in evacuations off sinking ships earned the aircrew of that CH-124A the first Victoria Crosses for Canadian servicemen since the Second World War. His decision to move his headquarters to the mainland, taking over the naval reserve division on a peninsula overlooking downtown Vancouver, before the Abyssals made Vancouver Island too indefensible had been brilliant and had been copied by Jersey's own fleet commander weeks later when it was decided to concentrate everything important on the West Coast from Kitsap to San Diego. Now that he had the effective second largest shipgirl fleet in the Pacific under his command...!

"What did they do, Heidi?" the admiral asked with a switch of tone to his voice, going to "concerned grandpa" mode that always worked with his shipgirls, even those nominally assigned to his opposite number at NCSM _Montcalm_ in Québec City.

"Well, when Shannon helped escort that last convoy to Japan with us, she had just been outfitted with two squadrons of Mark VIs provided by the Fourth Cavalry," Toronto stated. "As soon as they got in range of Tōkyō Bay, the Commanders Sumire came out to help escort the convoy into Yokohama. Shannon had a troop from 'C' Squadron up as CAP over the formation and those two freaked out so much that they made her CRY, sir!" As Jersey winced on hearing that, the sixty-sixth of the River-class frigates serving in Canada (by pendant number) added, "Only good time any of us could thank God for Commander Yamamoto and that 'Nagamon' tendency of hers. Instant she saw Shannon crying, she tore a strip out of both those fraidy cats, then laid into the Commanders Fujita for defending them after they tried to curse Shannon for flying those 'demonic things', which made her cry all the way to Eta-jima! Given how much of an attitude the younger Commander Fujita laid on her, Commander Matsubara was happy to help out!" She then winked as she pulled out a huge case of white sake bottles the size of the older style 1.5 litre glass soft drink bottles that were used before plastic came into vogue. "With bribe!"

Bowman blinked, then he laughed. His love of Japanese sake made him an instant hit with hard drinkers from Japan such as Jun'yō and Chitose, not to mention Pola from Italy. "Okay, I'll bite! What does Suzue want in return, Heidi?!"

"Pictures of Sei and Hiyoko making asses of themselves, especially after Shizuka makes a visit to ASU Chilliwack to see the Mark VIs on display," Toronto supplied. "She actually called the Mark VIs the Queen's Own sent out 'kawaii'."

Both Canadians laughed as Jersey tried not to guffaw at what was about to happen. "Toss in a year's supply of Suzue's favourite Tim Hortons' coffee or tea and it's a deal," Bowman bade before he sobered. "And a year's supply of maple syrup for Anna and whatever snacks Kei, Sei and Hiyoko like. Even if we laugh at it now, PTSD is a serious issue, especially given how much Eighth Brigade tipped things right out of whack at Midway even if they got Yvonne's sister in the end."

"Aye, sir!" Toronto said as she and Jersey saluted him...

* * *

 _ **Chilliwack (a hundred kilometres south-of-east from Vancouver), Wednesday 19 August, an hour before lunch...**_

" _ **'CUTE'?!**_ " a very wide-eyed Sōryū shrieked at the third Yamato-class as she tried to pull the larger carrier away from the THING in front of her. " _ **THEY'RE NOT 'CUTE', SHIZUKA! THEY'RE THE BLACK SPAWN OF RAIJIN-SAMA AND F**_ _ **Ū**_ _ **JIN-SAMA! YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO**_ **SEE** _ **THOSE DAMNED THINGS IN THEIR VERY**_ **NEST** _ **?! ARE YOU MAD?!**_ "

Shinano blinked as she saw Toronto and Swansea snap picture after picture from their iPhones, capturing the meltdown of the Second Carrier Division to be posted at Shipgirl Central as quick as possible; Zuikaku would get a massive kick out of Kaga's reaction to the largest carrier built by Japan fawning over examples of the unknown workhorse of the Pacific War. Watching this, New Jersey could only shake her head as she considered how fucking damned HUMBLE the Canadians always were when it came to what they did in times of war. If they didn't downplay the actions of the War Hawks during the metahuman side of that war, they never touted the incredible work the First Canadian Army did securing the left of the line in the final advance on Germany, never mind that useless sacrifice at Dieppe years earlier. Given Canadian ships had pretty much held the line in the Atlantic from the start of the war to the finish, that alone earned them kudos. That said _**nothing**_ of what nine flying regiments of the Dominion's tactical aviation forces did to keep the skies over the Pacific in Allied hands after Pearl...!

"But it's really cute, Sempai! Don't you see the nice nose art?" Shinano said as she pointed to the port side of the green-and-sky blue aircraft on a ground mounting in a park located close to the small area support unit for all Army forces in British Columbia. Here, she pointed to the cute angel wielding a pair of unsheathed cavalry sabres on the port side of the engine cowling housing a Pratt and Whitney Canada R-2030C Maple Wasp, a locally-built version of the R-1830 Twin Wasp fitted into everything from the F4F Wildcat to the DC-3 airliner to the PBY Catalina flying boat that helped win Midway.

Said engine, chosen for its physically smaller dimensions and fitted with mesonium-augmented steel in the working parts to prevent wear and tear and keep the fuel consumption quite low to extend the range, was mated to an updated version of the famous Sopwith F1 Camel hull design from the Great War, minus its upper wing and struts. It also had a bubble canopy that gave the pilot near-perfect all-around vision, retractable landing gear that folded back into the main hull when airborne yet splayed out like a Supermarine Spitfire's wheels did when it came time to roll out on the ground, a slightly swept-back wing with large lifting surfaces to give it excellent flying characteristics at low altitude and retractable hard points on the middle and outer wing where gun tubs for "six packs" of the famous "Ma Deuce" could be loaded, along with "Holy Moses" rockets, bombs or even air-dropped _**torpedoes**_ for whatever mission a commander could cook up depending on circumstances.

The Sopwith Canada So-48 Camel II...!

The same aircraft the Protector of All Life herself flew in the Battle of Britain.

Now — in faerie size — the main fighter for Canadian carriers on the high seas, not to mention many older British carriers.

Not to mention outfitting the defence forces that helped shipgirls of the Dominion keep their coasts clear of Abyssals.

 _Wonder if those shitheads have nightmares about them_ , Jersey mused.

"Ah! A couple of the Corps' many victims, I believe."

Sōryū and Hiryū jolted on hearing that voice, then they robotically turned...

"Hey, Pilot Sergeant Major!" Toronto called out as Jersey looked herself while a smiling man in his nineties quietly came over to join them, leaning on his cane. Beside him was a grinning technical sergeant — you could tell by the "lightning sabres" worn under the chevrons which symbolized the "stable hands" that normally maintained aircraft of the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry — with the initials **BCMR** on his shoulders. That regimental short-code effectively matched the alpha-numeric regimental code on the Mark VI's hull and upper wings to the left of the black maple leaf; aircraft of Canada's tactical aviation corps NEVER used standard roundels. "This your old gal?" she then asked as she waved to the old attack aircraft.

"That she is, Commander," the elderly pilot said with an affectionate tone in his voice as he patted the wing.

Lingabar — who had been the one most sympathetic to the suffering of the girls of Carrier Division Two despite her own outrage at how they had treated Puncher a month ago — leaned over to read the hull code. "One-Six-Charlie-Oh-Oh-Two. Squadron sergeant-major of 'C' Squadron, First of the Sixth Canadian Cavalry. Today, the British Columbia Mounted Rifles (RCCAC), part of 39 CBG in Third Canadian Division." She then sighed. "One of the ones at Operation Ten-gō, I believe."

As Shinano squawked on hearing that code-name of the final mission her elder sister underwent as a battleship — and Toronto and Swansea both sent very annoyed looks at their younger sister — the elderly pilot sighed. "Yes. An act of clear-cut _**murder**_ if there ever was one," he breathed out. As the Japanese shipgirls all stopped and gaped in surprise at him, a wry smile crossed his face. "It was war, of course. But even then, we could sense what was happening. One beautiful battleship, one light cruiser, eight destroyers. There had to be next to no fuel left to propel the Imperial Navy anywhere and hope to get back to port after a fight. There wasn't even two regiments' worth of aircraft sent in support of Admiral Itō's forces. Most of them were on one-way missions themselves." He shook his head. "It was no proper battle, no fair odds of victory. No way to give your sister the honourable battle she deserved after being kept in harbour for far too damned long..."

"You have the _**battle honour**_ named after her...!" Hiryū bitterly hissed.

He gazed at her, then he nodded. "All six regiments involved that day have it, Commander Sumire. We argued against it after the committee finished its recommendations in '56 when it came time to update the guidons. Major Raeburn protested it all the way to the Master General himself. But it was approved. At least the people who made the guidons for the Rocky Mountain Dragoons — the Second of the Fifth Cavalry; they're based up in Cranbrook near Banff — and the Queen's Own Vancouver Island Regiment — the Second of the Sixth Cavalry; they're based out of Comox on the island — well, they made sure it was never stitched on before the guidons were blessed and allowed to be paraded. We weren't so damned 'lucky'." He sighed before gazing in amusement at Shinano. "Lieutenant Itō. A certain master chief boilerman who served on Commander Hyde here called and told me you like visiting airplane museums. Took a shine to the Mustang, eh?!"

Shinano instantly blushed. "H-hai...!" she sputtered before catching herself, then switching to her cutely accented English. "I m-mean, y-y-yes, Pilot Sergeant Major," she then declared before bowing low to this old warrior.

"Shizuka...!" Sōryū moaned out.

The larger carrier gazed at her. "«Sensei told me what you did!»" she snarled in Japanese, making the older carriers blanch. "«I certainly agree with Suzue-sempai that it's time that stupid fear of yours is done away with, never mind getting rid of Onē-san's silly fear! If she came here and had a regiment in the air over her head...!»" As both Sōryū and Hiryū collapsed in horror at the thought of again facing EIGHTY of those horrible monster airplanes coming at them with full war loads, the third of the Yamato-class turned to the elderly pilot, her eagerness to learn new things shining like the sun. "What was the difference between a So-48 and a P-47, Pilot Sergeant Major? I heard the Americans were considering getting the Camel II once...!"

As their elderly guide began to describe things, Jersey could only shake her head at the young carrier's eagerness to learn about the Canadian aircraft, then she blinked as Toronto and Swansea leaned down to whisper into Sōryū's and Hiryū's ears. "Just think," the former teased, the look in her dark blue eyes anything but humorous. "They actually elected to form a NEW regiment of the Corps of Air Cavalry from a detached squadron of le Vingtième Fusiliers, your old 'playmates' from Midway!"

As both carriers croaked at that revelation, Swansea added, "And just think: Once that squadron was made a LINE REGIMENT — they call it the 'Fraser Regiment (21st Canadian Cavalry)', in fact — well, they based it in _**Kamloops**_!"

"Which is just up the _**Fraser River**_..."

"...which flows just north of _**HERE**_!"

Sōryū and Hiryū shrieked before they dropped in a dead faint to the ground. As Toronto and Swansea instantly took pictures of the passed-out carriers, Jersey shook her head. "Might be easier to break Rule 2015 instead..."

Lingabar looked up to the battleship. "What does that mean, Commander Hyde?"

The namesake of the Golden State winked at the adopted native of Toronto's resident LGBTQ population. "Mary, if I know Shizuka, she'll convince the Corps old timers let her ship a whole freaking _**regiment**_ of Camel IIs before she gets back to Japan! Can you imagine what Yvonne's girlfriend, much less the Bauxite Queen and her friends and all the others the pilot sergeant major helped sink in that war, would react to hearing those engines ALL THE TIME?!"

The blonde frigate with the colours of the Rainbow Flag in her hair considered that, then she sighed. "Hockey game's easier." She then smirked. "You heard of what frigates can do with a puck. Wait until the CORVETTES get at it!"

Both of them laughed...

 _ **Fin...**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

Translation list: **Tatsu** — Dragon; **ASU** — Area Support Unit, a mini-base that helps with basic second-line support to reserve Army units in a particular district; **Raijin** — Shintō god of lightning; **F** **ū** **jin** — Shintō god of the wind; **39 CBG** — 39 Canadian Brigade Group, the Army reserve formation composed of units based in British Columbia; **Vingtième Fusiliers** — Twentieth Fusiliers, the short-name for **le Vingtième Fusiliers (du Québec-Nord) du Canada (CCRCA)** (literally "Twentieth Fusiliers [Northern Québec) of Canada [RCCAC]"), the Corps of Air Cavalry's senior French-speaking regiment.

As always, please consult _**The Air Cavalry Regiments of Canada**_ at the FictionPress website under my writer's name to learn more about the **Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry** ( **RCCAC** ) and its component regiments.

The story of **HMCS** _ **Lingabar**_ ( **Marion "Mary" O'Hara** ) and how she got adopted by Toronto's LGBTQ community is depicted in Part 13 of _**Samurai Shipgirl Sea Stories**_ and was noted under Rule 3460 in the " _ **Things No Longer Allowed Involving Shipgirls**_ " list that is often updated by many people in the SpaceBattles forums.

Shipgirls introduced here:

 _ **CANADA  
**_ _Sixth Canadian Escort Group "Toronto Argonauts" (CANESCGRU SIX)  
_ **HMCS Toronto** — Heidi Stephanie Clark  
 **HMCS Swansea** — Jody Eyleen Korning  
 **HMCS Runnymede** — Rayna Charlotte Chenoweth  
 **HMCS Lingabar** — Wanda Marion O'Hara  
 **HMCS Brampton** — Barbara Catherine Haggert  
 **HMCS West York** — Edwina Grace Scott  
 **HMCS Mimico** — Francine Jamie Jones  
 **HMCS Forrest Hill** — Faye Rose Brebner  
 **HMCS Long Branch** — Wendy Julia Kingsmill  
 **HMCS Leaside** — Gwendolyn Julia Kelly Holder  
 **HMCS Markham** — Josephine Reesor  
 **HMCS Clarington** — Charlene Bowman  
 **HMCS Mississauga** — Helen Sarah LaForme  
 **HMCS Vaughan** — Sarah Bernadette Vaughan

 _ **UNITED STATES  
**_ **USS White Plains** — Mary Elaine Mitscher

* * *

 **NEW YEAR'S OMAKE  
** _ **YONAGA VISITS HOME**_

 _ **Note:**_ This omake occurs in the New Year's season before the main story starts.

* * *

 _ **Sano-wan (near Ènurmino on the Arctic coast of Siberia), Saturday 31 December 2016, near midnight...**_

"I...appreciate your willingness to assist in this matter, Naomi-chan."

The tall and muscular battleship-turned-fleet carrier could only sigh as she gazed up at the clear night with a waning crescent high in the southern sky, her face a barely-controlled mask of grief and determination before she stared at the small inukshuk she made which housed the magically shrunken ship's temple containing the ashes of her recently-deceased crew. A slender hand then reached over to gently squeeze Yonaga's shoulder as the psychedelically-dressed nuclear-powered missile cruiser came up to stand beside her. "Chill, Yoiko," Long Beach said with a calm voice. "I know you feel still bound by the old dudes' orders to hit Pearl like the others did back before the Second Big Bad Scene. But there's no stopping you for visiting back home to make sure the others are all cool this time of year. 'Sides, it's one of your homeland's big parties, remember?"

Yonaga wryly grinned. "True." She shuddered as she fought back the urge to sob. "Forgive me..." she then whispered.

The cruiser smirked. "Chill, Big Y. I got all the stuff you wanted to get all the chicks back on the home range."

"And the relatives of my crew?"

"Them, too."

The carrier nodded. "Excellent. And as for the 'squares'...?"

Long Beach smirked the smile that made Abyssal princesses flee from her when they saw it. "All the coal I can find, Yoiko."

Yonaga smirked, her grey eyes glittering with anticipation...

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Naval District destroyer quarters, nine hours later (local time: Sunday 1 January 2017, two hours before breakfast)...**_

"Ha-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa...?"

A moan escaped Ikazuchi as she pulled herself up from under the covers, looking around in confusion. "Oi! What's wrong, Inoue...?" she grunted as she stretched herself, then she focused on her younger sister...

...then on noting Inazuma pointing in the direction where the kotatsu was kept in the room shared by the sisters of Destroyer Division Six, she looked over...before gasping on seeing the small mountain of presents there. " _ **WOW!**_ "

That got Akatsuki and Hibiki up. On seeing the sheer volume there, the silver-haired ex-Soviet destroyer gaped. "Khoroshó...!" she breathed out in awe. She had expected some presents from the others as well as the cruisers who always took care of them, but to see such a massive amount of wrapped gifts there...! "Ded Moróz and Snegúrka were nice this year...!"

Akatsuki blinked, then she squared her shoulder as she got up and walked over to gaze upon the nicely-wrapped gifts there. "'From Friends'...?!" she quoted when she looked at the card of one of the boxes set aside for her. "Who...?"

All four then perked as the door opened, revealing their "mom boats". "Damn!" Tenryū breathed out on seeing the mound of gifts there while Tatsuta slipped past her to give the room a detailed look-over. "You guys, too?"

"What do you mean, Tamiyo-san?" Inazuma asked.

The raven-haired, tomboyish cruiser sighed. "Seems someone was playing Secret Santa a week late, Inoue-chan," she said as she rested her hand on the hilt of her combat sword. "Everyone on the base got presents."

The destroyers all blinked...

* * *

 _ **The administration building, an hour later...**_

"The 'Great Old Ones'?!" Gotō Kiichi asked.

Ono Haru nodded as she tried not to shake. "Hai. They're more commonly known as the 'Great Beasts'. Considered by many the oldest kami on Earth, beings who have been around for MILLIONS of years in many cases." As the people assembled in the office of the leader of the Fleet Shipgirl Project gaped on hearing that, the disguised kitsune took a deep breath before sipping the tea that Ōyodo prepared for her to sooth her nerves. "Our gift-bringers last night were not any of them directly. However, I'm sure that one of our two visitors was definitely blessed by one of the Great Old Ones. I would assume a kanmusu of some sort, but as to who she was and what she had been before her transformation, I can't say."

"What of the other one?" Gotō wondered as the group of shipgirls standing or sitting in the office exchanged worried looks.

"That one, I can't even START to predict what she is," Haru confessed. "It was as if the very power of the Heavens had touched that one. Again, she's most likely a kanmusu. I know the difference between one and a normal metahuman..."

"Are the gifts safe?" Nagato asked. "Given the sheer volume — even to Harry-chan's guests — I doubt that whoever did this had malicious thoughts towards us. Given what Yūka-san and Arisa-sensei discovered when they opened their presents..."

Eyes locked on Yūbari and Akashi, both of who nodded in agreement to the secretary ship's observation. "What about Hoppō-chan's friends?" Gotō then asked. "What did they discover? Young Percy-kun expressed concern about Supprin-san..."

Almost as if on cue, the door opened to reveal the harbour princess that had claimed the Timor Sea as her own territory. "We must speak, Admiral," Wanko declared with a noticeable tremor in her voice. "You had visitors last night."

"We KNOW that part!" Enterprise snapped from beside Yamato, then her eyes narrowed. "You seem to know them."

"Know OF them, Enterprise," Wanko hissed. "The _**Angry One**_...and the _**Crazy One**_!"

Gulps echoed through the room...

* * *

 _ **The cafeteria, breakfast...**_

"Okay, I'll bite," Ronald Weasley said. "Who are the Angry One and the Crazy One?"

Harry Potter sighed. "No one exactly knows who they are, Ron. They have to be shipgirls, though the Angry One was said to have become a shipgirl within the last month or so. The Crazy One first appeared a couple months before school started." As Ron and his brothers Percy, Fred and George nodded in understanding, Nagato's adopted son added, "The Angry One's been terrorizing the Abyssals in the high Arctic for the last five years or so, since about two months after Blood Week went down. No matter how much the installation princesses and their fleets try to sink this one, they can't do it; they're mowed down every time. Hoppō had a really bad nightmare about the Angry One coming down to kill her before she was betrayed and attacked, then got rescued by Aunt Yasuko and Aunt Yvonne..." At the brothers' confused looks, he quickly added, "Yamato and Enterprise." Once they nodded, Harry moaned. "Swear, we gotta get a book with everyone's human names...!"

"So what could this one be, Harry?" Percy asked. "Battleship? Carrier?"

"Most likely a carrier of some sort," Harry answered. "But here's the problem: No one knows what sort of carrier she is, much less where she's from. She can't be ex-Soviet; they never had carriers in the Great Patriotic War..."

"Wars of Liberation," Percy translated on noting his brothers' confused looks.

At their understanding nods, Harry added, "...and she can't be British; all of them are accounted for, even the ones who later joined other natives. Doubt she's American; whoever it is, she would have reported to someone by now."

"Japanese?" George asked.

Harry hummed. "Maybe. But as to who..." Here, he shrugged.

"So what about this 'Crazy One'?" Fred asked.

"Do not speak about Crazy One...!"

That was Harry's adopted sister. "Hoppō-chan!" he scolded on seeing the child-shaped installation princess shudder as she looked fretfully around the cafeteria, which was slowly filling up with shipgirls and human staff as they moved to enjoy the first meal of the day before going on watch at their stations or visit nearby shrines for New Year's celebrations. "So she likes to spread free love around! Isn't that a good thing in the end?! She didn't say you were 'square', remember?!"

Hoppō yelped, then she rapidly shook her head. "No! Hoppō not square! Hoppō not square!" She then groaned, waving her hands around in desperation. "Onii-chan! Stop teasing Hoppō! Thinking about Crazy One always makes Hoppō scared!"

"What's this 'free love'?" Percy asked. "Some sort of strange shipgirl magic?"

Hoppō squawked on hearing THAT PHRASE, then she shuddered as her cheeks flushed a deep grey. "It...mushy stuff!" As the twins gaped and Percy blinked, the personification of the lost children of Unalaska added, "Crazy One always sails around wanting to give free love to Abyssals! It HURT Abyssals when she comes see them! Abyssals try to chase Crazy One off, then Crazy One says they're 'square' and sinks them! All Abyssals too scared of Crazy One...!" She then froze. "Oh, no...!"

"What?!" Harry demanded.

Hoppō was now as white as a ghost. "Crazy One...Angry One...they're...?" She then gulped. "Hoppō think...they're FRIENDS!"

That made Harry and the Weasley brothers blink in confusion as the installation princess began muttering, "Not good...not good...not good...!" over and over again while trying not to pass out from the sheer fright seizing her...

* * *

 _ **Taranto in Italy, that moment (local time: After midnight)...**_

" _ **BUON ANNO!**_ "

Glasses of sparkling spumante and prosecco were raised as the assembled shipgirls, human staff and visitors based in and around l'Arsenale Militare Marittimo di Taranto toasted in the coming of the new year. As fireworks exploded over the port city, a smiling brown-haired battleship sauntered over to where a young brown-haired Oriental man in normal clothing was seated, nursing his own glass of sparkling rose wine. "You're awfully quiet, Ataru," Roma noted. "Are you alright?"

Moroboshi Ataru perked before he blushed, shifting himself slightly to allow the third of the Littorio-class battleships to sit beside them. As they gazed out at the calm waters of the inner harbour of Italy's main naval port, he sipped his wine. "Just thinking about what my 'younger self' is going through right now," he lamented as he gently wrapped his arm around hers, reaching down to grasp her hand. "Until tonight, I had to admit, 'this' was the best New Year's I ever had."

"Oh?!" a voice asked, making Ataru look over as Littorio, Vittorio Veneto and Imperio came to sit with their sister and her new boyfriend. "Now you've made us curious! What IS going on in that sin-pit?" the lead of her class demanded.

Ataru moaned. "Well, it's like this, Vanna..."

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, that moment...**_

"...DO that to poor, sweet Lum-chan?! I wish I never had...!"

 _ **KK-KLONK!**_

"...you..."

Moroboshi Ataru blinked on hearing the sound of concrete smashing down on someone's skull, then he looked over to see his mother Kinshō now with her head smashed into the floorboards of the hallway, a cinder block having clipped her good in the back of the head. Smiling in delight on seeing the loudmouth he was born from finally dropped low — though he had no idea as to HOW that had happened — he took a deep breath, then he got up from under the new kotatsu that had been placed in his bedroom the previous evening. Walking over, he lifted the cinder block off his mother's head, which made her groan as she tried to pick herself up from the floor. "Who...did that...?" she moaned as she seemed to gyrate around...

...and stumbled off the top of the stairs, falling head-over-heels to the foyer by the kitchen and the doorway leading into the living room. Ataru winced on seeing his mother nearly break her neck — while a part of him smirked at seeing _**Kinshō**_ suffer from such an accident and not him — then he shook his head. "Selfish idiot..." he muttered as he stepped into his bedroom...

...before the cinder block in his hand slipped off his fingers!

Ataru spun around to look as said block began bouncing down the stairs, just as Ataru's father Muchi came out of the living room, a curious look on his face. "Kā-san, why on Earth aren't you more careful...?" he began...

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

Ataru winced on seeing his father get winged in the side of the head by the cinder block! As Muchi dropped like a stone to the floor, said block then crashed once more on Kinshō, nearly crushing her face! Seeing that, Ataru shook his head. "Your fault, bakayaro-tachi," he chanted as he walked into the bedroom, sliding the door closed behind him while pained moans escaped his parents as they wondered what the heck had suddenly forced their son's notorious luck on them...

* * *

 _ **Taranto...**_

Roma was roaring with laughter. "I would give a fortune to have a camera to take pictures of that!" she shrieked.

"Isn't that something Tariko would do?"

Eyes locked on Imperio. Ataru considered that for a moment, then he nodded. "Yeah, Irene, you have a point..."

"Aren't we supposed to be concerned about temporal paradoxes?!" Veneto asked.

Silence fell as the four fast battleships and the boyfriend of one considered that, then Ataru waved Veneto down. "Relax, Tori!" he called out before winking at the namesake of Italy's penultimate battle of unification in World War One. "If Haruhi signed off on doing whatever she did to get people off my backs during New Year's, Tariko can do whatever she wants to all of them!" He then winked. "It'll explain why my 'wife' and the other idiot aliens in town all but VANISHED for a week!"

"What happened?" Littorio demanded.

Ataru snickered...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki...**_

"What's this?"

" _ **DARLING!**_ "

Ataru winced before he looked out the window...

 _ **KK-KRUNCH!**_

...then he winced after yet another cinder block smashed down to nearly punch his "wife" through the veranda deck. While inwardly wincing at the thought of Redet Lum being made to experience something like that, Ataru shook his head. He had deliberately burned all the presents Lum had got him for Christmas, not for a moment trusting that the warlord's daughter from Uru had not done something to try to further horn into his life like she loved to do all the time. No doubt, she had spotted the fire pit he had used to destroy those gifts — not to mention the few Christmas cards he got from "friends" like Miyake Shinobu or the Stormtroopers, much less his parents — some blocks away from the house, then had come right back to the house to confront him; she had spent the last week visiting friends on other planets and seeing her parents back on Uru.

Shaking his head as he wished yet again for Lum to just get a clue about things, Ataru took up the envelope that had been placed on top of the small pile of presents that had been left behind for him on a brand-new kotatsu — not the one a certain cat-ghost had brought into this house and left in Ataru's bedroom even during warm days — then he opened it. Drawing out the folded sheet of paper that was inside it, he opened it up...then blinked on seeing the word there.

"'Yiziba'?"

A horrified scream nearly bowled him over, making Ataru look right to see Lum now staring in mortal terror at him. Blinking in confusion as he wondered what the heck was scaring his "wife" so much, Ataru then gaped as Lum shrieked in bone-chilling fright before shooting herself into the sky, racing up as fast as she could fly to the hovering scoutship nearly a kilometre above his roof. Seeing that, Ataru shrugged as he set the envelope and sheet aside, then attacked the presents...

* * *

 _ **Taranto...**_

"So what happened?!" Veneto demanded as her sisters all laughed as they imaged what was going on now in Tomobiki.

Ataru chuckled. "Well, Lum blasted off and raced back to her planet to stay with her parents for a week. Jariten went with her once he heard that I said the 'scary name', as did Rei and Ran-chan once they got 'the word'." As the battleships all laughed on hearing that, he added, "The idiots I was living with then didn't say a thing to me the whole time even if it was obvious that Kinshō was upset that I somehow scared 'dear sweet Lum-chan and dear sweet Ten-chan' off. Once the idiots in town clued in to what was going on, they tried to break into the house and force me to help them do a 'ventora' summons to get a space taxi down here so they could get to Uru and see what was going on...!" He laughed. "They all got clocked in the head with cinder blocks, then heard this really scary voice vow that if they didn't 'stop being square' and 'left A-man alone', someone would 'do a Death Star' and turn Uru into an asteroid field..." He winked. "With the 'square chick' on it!"

More laughter escaped the Littorio sisters. "That must have made them shut up!" Littorio herself said before she snickered.

"It did, Vanna," Ataru affirmed before he sighed. "Pity it only lasted for a week or so. After Lum got back to Earth, everything went back to 'normal'. Fortunately, people didn't get snoopy about what made all that happen and why." He then shook his head, wishing he could think of a way to warn his younger self about what he was about to face over the next three months and more within Tomobiki itself before the existence of his other "wife" was publicly revealed...

"Ehi! Stop that!" Roma scolded. "So, what were the presents?"

Ataru blushed...

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki...**_

"Red underwear...?"

* * *

 _ **Taranto...**_

"Oh...?!" Littorio, Veneto and Imperio all crooned as they gazed on Roma.

The namesake of the Eternal City turned as red as a cherry before she waved her hands in a show of innocence. " _ **IT WASN'T ME! I SWEAR IT! I WOULDN'T DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT! WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT?!**_ "

Ataru chuckled. "I'm wearing them, Tesoro," he then cooed into Roma's ear. "Are you wearing what I got you this year?"

Roma squawked as her sisters all squealed. "Oh, it's love!" Littorio yodelled.

"We have to start baking the wedding cake!" Veneto declared.

"And send out all the invitations!" Imperio added.

As her sisters chattered away, Roma blinked before she shuddered as she leaned against her boyfriend, her cheeks still flush...

 _ **And A Happy New Year to All!**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

 **Ded Moróz** ("Old Man Frost") and **Snegúrka** ("Snow Maiden") are Slavic folk characters who tend to serve as the local equivalents of Santa Claus in places like Russia. Ded Moróz tends to look like most modern Western depictions of Santa, though he wears blue in lieu of red. He often brings presents to children on New Year's Eve, hence the reference made by **THG** _ **Hibiki**_ ( **Akamatsu Himeko** ). Snegúrka is Ded Moróz's granddaughter and always helps the old man do such deliveries during the holiday season; unlike him, she has no basis in ancient folk tales, having only appeared in stories from the Nineteenth Century onward. Her affiliation with Ded Moróz and helping out at New Year's is actually a _**Soviet**_ invention.

 **Supprin** is the nickname for the **Supply Depot Princess** , who first appeared in the Winter Event E-2. Her friendship with **Percy Weasley** is a plot point in Harry Leferts' snippets that appear at SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity. In the continuity of _Harry Potter and the Shipgirls_ , this omake occurs in the period of Harry's snippet #s 224-250.

Translation list: **Buon Anno** — Literally "Good Year", the Italian equivalent of the English "Happy New Year"; **Spumante** — Sparkling wine; **Prosecco** — A type of Italian white wine made traditionally from **Glera** , a Slovenian white grape; **Arsenale Militare Marittimo di Taranto** — Literally "Maritime Military Arsenal at Taranto", the name of the Taranto naval base.

The tradition concerning red underwear dates from the Middle Ages. Red was seen as personifying blood, the Devil, witchcraft and other forms of evil. However, when women wore red underwear at New Year's Eve, they experienced good luck in love and attracting wealthy husbands in the following year. These days, doing such personifies passion, happiness and sex as well as good luck for the new year...which finally comes to the "past" version of Moroboshi Ataru then living in Tomobiki by April of 2017 as the storyline goes; the timeline of the first _Yatsura_ movie _**Only You**_ starts on 15 April in this story.

* * *

 **VALENTINE'S DAY OMAKE  
** _ **SHIPGIRL VALENTINES COME TO TOMOBIKI!**_

 _ **Note**_ _: The events in the second_ Urusei Yatsura _movie_ Beautiful Dreamer _occurred on the night of 6-7 February 2017 in the universe of_ The Seventh Shipgirl _, so certain repercussions from the events in the movie still play out in the background._

* * *

 _ **Tomobiki, Tomobiki High School, Tuesday 14 February 2017, after breakfast...**_

"Hey, Moroboshi!"

Moroboshi Ataru perked on hearing that rough woman's voice, then he looked up as the most unique member of his homeroom class came jogging his way, waving her hand. "Osu, Ryū-chan!" he called out, waving back. "What's wrong?!"

Fujinami Ryūnosuke stopped, then grabbed his hand. "C'mon!"

He gaped at her. "You're wanting a date?!"

"Knock it off, you stupid moron!" the "heir" of Hamachaya snarled at him as she nearly pulled him off his feet, moving as fast as she could to get him inside. "It's a fucking emergency! Haul your ass in gear and get in class!"

Ataru moaned as he allowed his classmate to pull him inside, giving him a chance to slip off his outdoor shoes and put on some uwabaki before she literally yanked him up to the second floor, where Class 1-4 normally met in the southwest wing. Of course, by now, the repairs to the classroom and the underlying floors had been completed from the disaster that was the school's winter festival a week before, when Mendō Shūtarō somehow got it into his head to put a real surplus _**Leopard 2A1 main battle tank**_ in the classroom; even stripped of everything heavy, the machine was still ultimately too much for the Taishō Era construction of the old schoolhouse. Once they got to the front doorway opening into the classroom, Ryūnosuke shoved Ataru through, then let him go to give him the chance to see what was going on inside the infamous "class of failure".

It was...an eyeful.

"Holy...!"

It was a MOUNTAIN of wrapped Valentine's Day presents sitting on HIS desk!

Silence fell as the students — including a steamed Redet Lum, who was now flaring with jealousy — stared in disbelief at such a bounty, then they turned to gape in shock at the man those boxes had been meant for. To Ataru's silent mirth, not even the considerable pile of gifts on Shūtarō's desk came close to what he now had. The second largest pile was on Ryūnosuke's desk, which made Ataru glad; even if the beach café tomboy had a tonne of issues with understanding what she was, the fact that the girls of Tomobiki High cared enough for her plight was a good thing. To his surprise, both Tsuruya Rumiko and Inu Chigaiko got fair piles of presents as well. While such would be seen as odd, it was known that the school's smartest student was a hardcore lesbian, so hopefully someone in this place had been nice to her. He had no idea about the latter's sexual orientation, though he suspected that sympathetic friends of her older sister Fuchiko at Butsumetsu High School had sent some out to cheer her up in the face of whatever-it-was that was making everyone at Tomobiki High forget her name.

Finally, much to Ataru's dark, private delight, none of the other boys in class got a _**single**_ present. Then again, given the universal mad obsession towards his "wife" that all the boys in Tomobiki High often showed...!

"Hey, a-ho! How come you...?"

 _KK-KRACK!_

A wailing scream echoed through the classroom after Chigaiko literally swatted Redet Ten out of the school building with one swipe of a handy shinai. "Arigatō, Chigaiko-chan," Ataru said as he moved to take his seat and start attacking the gifts sent to him. "Stupid little brat needs to know that he's not allowed on school grounds during class time."

"Any other ways to keep the little jerk out of here on a very permanent basis, Ataru-kun?" Chigaiko asked as she moved to stand beside his desk, shinai at her shoulder. Fortunately for her only real friend in this school, the sheer shock of ATARU getting such a huge bounty of Valentine's Day presents was so great, none of the girls in Class 1-4 didn't launch into their normal protests towards any sort of mistreatment concerning Lum's kindergarten-aged cousin.

"Garlic works best," Ataru said as he sat down, ignoring Lum's yelp on hearing of the hated spice. "In fact, heated garlic butter gives them third degree burns. Learned that sometime ago. Might want to make some up in the future."

"Sure. If it teaches a certain arrogant bitch how to behave herself."

Again, the sheer shock of seeing so many gifts on the desk of the "cancer of Tomobiki" stopped all of Lum's many supporters in the room from upbraiding "Yon-san" for threatening their favourite classmate in such a disgusting manner.

"Okay, so who's...?!" Ataru then gasped. "Holy shit! No way!"

"What?!" Chigaiko demanded.

He burst out laughing. "No way! After all this time, they figured it out!"

"What?!"

Ataru winked at her as he showed her the small picture that was attached to the first letter sent to him. Staring at it, Chigaiko gaped...before a confused look crossed her face. "Wait a second, Ataru! That was sent by a 'Fukushima Fujiko'! That's...!"

He shushed her. "It's a secret! I'll tell you later...!"

"Darling...!"

 _KK-KLONK! KRUNCH! POW! KA-POW! CRUNCH! SMASH! WHOMP!_

Ataru and Chigaiko looked towards the front of the room...

...then after seeing Lum literally smashed into the teacher's desk thanks to a half-dozen cinder blocks that appeared out of NOWHERE, they blinked before the boys in class screamed in horror, they moving immediately to her side. As the girls gaped in shock at their most powerful classmate having been brutally brought down so low, Ataru hummed as he recalled what had happened on New Year's morning, the first day of a week of total BLISS where he didn't have to put up to all of the crap that always seemed to fall on his head most often thanks to his "wife". Much that he hadn't made use of THE WORD to put Lum into her place since that time — he realized almost right away that the joke could get pretty stale fast and might not help him if she got used to hearing it — maybe now was the time to see if it still affected her in the way it did back in January.

After all, THIS was his ultimate secret!

The one he would gladly DIE to keep from all around him.

"Yiziba."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

An inhuman shriek of mortal terror escaped the wounded Oni teenager as she seemed to leap high in the air, her eyes darting to and fro like she was about to be dragged down into the nether regions by the hounds of Hell themselves! Before anyone could say anything, Lum flew as fast as she could out of the classroom, barely missing a tree just outside the windows — which was understandable since she did have a nice concussion thanks to the cinder blocks — as she raced into the sky.

Unnoticed by anyone in the class, another woman's shriek echoed from nearby Class 1-7, where a certain rose-haired Seishin-Urusian teenager named Aruka Ran had been until she heard the most feared word in the local cluster.

No one in Class 1-4 took note of the trail of smoke marking Ran's escape from school to get to her mobile home and flee Earth.

As the others stood there like idiots, Ataru sighed. "A week of peace," he mused to himself before returning to Fubuki's letter.

Chigaiko, Ryūnosuke and Rumiko all stared in confusion at him...

* * *

 _ **Morning break...**_

" _ **WHAT?!**_ "

Ignoring the chorus of wailing boys who just got news from Urayamu Akira ("Chibi" of the Stormtroopers) about Lum's and Ran's departure on their starships from Tomobiki — most likely back to their home planet of Uru light-years away — Ataru smiled as he placed the last of the large amount of chocolate that a virtual FLEET of shipgirls sent him from all the naval districts in Japan into a handy cardboard box to take to a secure location so he could snack on it in the future. As almost all the girls of the class stayed clear of him while they whispered all sorts of theories as to what was happening — after seeing what happened to Lum, they now suspected some sort of dark kami would gladly make their lives hell if they bothered the Oni's "husband" — Chigaiko could only smile as she enjoyed the nice peace and quiet that had descended on the classroom.

Still, like Ryūnosuke and Rumiko, she was surprised at ONE admission Ataru just made.

"You made HUMAN NAMES for SHIPGIRLS?!" Ryūnosuke demanded.

"Of course I did, Ryū-chan!" Ataru said as he nibbled on the home-baked chocolate mousse cake that all the Shiratsuyu-class destroyers had baked for him. "After all, can you look at someone like Kodachi-chan and say she's a THING?"

He held up a picture of Yūdachi — to him, Hamamoto Kodachi — in emphasis. Seeing that pretty girl with the long blonde hair topped with fox ear-like tufts at the temples and the chestnut brown eyes, Ryūnosuke sighed. "Okay, you got a point. But how the HELL do you keep this shit from Shinobu-san, much less Lum? And how the hell are you still in contact with them?"

"Think about it, Ryūnosuke-chan," Rumiko stated. "Thanks to what Megane and his fools did back last April with that space taxi, do you really think the government of Japan would condone a shipgirl LYNCH MOB coming into Tomobiki to hang those four idiots? Much less find a way to feed Lum to an ABYSSAL?!" As Chigaiko muttered that the warlord's daughter from Uru would DESERVE that, Ryūnosuke and Ataru both winced. "It probably explains why a lot of outside news is being censored before it gets into town here. I don't know how the aliens might take to the idea of shipgirls OR Abyssals for that matter."

"Why would they do that, Rumiko?" Ryūnosuke asked.

Ataru's eyebrows nearly shot into his hair on hearing the tomboy address the other girl without any honorific, then a light smile crossed his face. While he would still chase her for dates in the future, he was glad that someone like Rumiko had been able to show the rather clueless native of Chōshi the ways of sex. Given how screwed up Ryūnosuke's upbringing had been...!

"Do you know what the word 'Yiziba' means?" Rumiko wondered.

"What?" Chigaiko asked.

"It's a planet in the Sigma Sagittarii system, about 273 light years from here. It's the site of the Forge of the Seekers, where all the Power Jewels like the one Dean Raeburn-shōsa has were made. According to a book that Raeburn-shōsa published after World War Two, humans from Earth were transplanted to Yiziba over twenty thousand years ago. They developed a culture like ours, but two thousand years ago, they evolved in something they called the 'Dawn of Power' into a race of real, honest-to-goodness METAHUMANS!" As the others gasped on hearing that, Rumiko smirked. "I also read in that book that about 250 years ago, the Yizibajohei — that's what you call a native of that place — went and delivered a VICIOUS smack-down on some idiot race that tried to conquer them around that time." She then smirked as she thumbed the teacher's desk.

The others blinked. "Lum's people?" Chigaiko demanded.

"Most likely," Rumiko affirmed. "They weren't named in Raeburn-shōsa's book, but given how Yizibajohei just LOATHE any sort of 'sameness' — being a drone, in other words — it does make a tonne of sense given today's events."

"And New Year's, too," Ataru noted.

"What happened?" Ryūnosuke demanded.

"I got a whole tonne of presents from some people I don't know...though I do suspect who one of them might be," he answered as a touch of acid entered his voice. "I burned all the presents Lum and my parents got for me for Christmas; I wouldn't trust any of them to send me something that doesn't come back to hurt me one way or another. But someone out there liked me."

A look of disgust crossed Ryūnosuke's face for a second before her eyes widened, then she sighed. "That whole 'I wish I never had him' shit that your mom always loves to say when she thinks people aren't hearing her?"

He gaped at her, then he chuckled. "Finally! Someone listens!"

"I've heard the bitch a few times," Chigaiko noted. "You ought to hear what my mom says about that woman! Back when she was our age, she was the school doorknob here at Tomobiki High, bedding everyone that got in her way!"

"My mom's said the same thing about her," Rumiko noted. Unlike the others in Class 1-4, the smartest student in Tomobiki had wondered on occasion why she couldn't remember the other girl's name given that Ataru always addressed her by name every time they spoke to each other. _A curse of some sort?_ she wondered to herself. "So what do you think she'll do once she learns you chased off her 'precious Lum-chan' and 'sweet Ten-chan' off the planet for at least a week?"

"Oh, I've got a place to stay while she's having her faux-crying fit, Rumiko-chan," Ataru noted. "I won't say anything more; the idiots here do have something in the way of brains and might put two and two together."

"Don't worry about them, Ataru-kun," Chigaiko promised. "Onē-chan's ready for them."

"You are too sweet, Chigaiko-chan."

He tried not to frown on noting the confusion on Ryūnosuke's face. _Someone's not doing their job...!_ he mused to himself...

* * *

 _ **In the nurse's station...**_

Sakurambō Sakura sneezed!

* * *

 _ **The cafeteria, lunchtime...**_

"Wow! It's so _**peaceful**_ ," Rumiko breathed out. "Even if I can't remember your name, your sister's gang are really nice folk!"

"Did they HAVE to beat up all the girls, too?!" Ryūnosuke moaned.

"Given that they'll follow Miyake's lead, yes!" Chigaiko said as the three girls and their male classmate nibbled on chocolate the shipgirls had sent them from all over Japan and abroad, they relaxing at one table. Much to their relief, the ever-perfect school grapevine had warned everyone else to avoid these four from Class 1-4; the large gang from Butsumetsu High commanded by Chigaiko's elder sister Inu Fuchiko had made brutal work of the rest of their classmates, making it loudly clear that ANY attempts at trying to entice "the Oni and their friends" back to Earth by hurting Ataru would respond in a beatdown of EPIC proportions, including "pink parties" of all the girls who emotionally were attracted to Mendō Shūtarō. As all the others in their class were now in the emergency ward at Nishitōkyō General Hospital — for Shūtarō himself, his family estate at the west end of town — the four unhurt people had the rest of the day effectively off. "She's the one who helped set up that whole 'Rosebud' thing back in September when Ataru-kun wanted to quit being class representative. Right now, Onē-chan is making it REALLY clear to Ogin and her idiots that nothing is to be done to Ataru-kun in retaliation for her 'hurting poor, sweet Mendō-san'..." Here, her voice dripped with a faux moan of horror while Rumiko groaned and Ryūnosuke rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, they do act like idiots around that guy, don't they?" the tomboy muttered as she nibbled on chocolate.

" _ **AH-HAH!**_ "

Everyone jolted as a tidal wave surged up behind the "heir" of Hamachaya...

" _ **TOO LATE!**_ "

The sonic boom from Rumiko's shout knocked Fujinami Fujimi off his surfboard and sent him face-first into the cafeteria floor, making the aged fisherman yelp in pain at being knocked off his stride by his "son's" classmate like that. "Pity that I got to Ryūnosuke-chan long ago about all the foul things you put into her head, Baka Jijii!" the smartest student in Tomobiki loudly declared, which made Fujimi yelp in outrage. "Honestly! Telling her that chocolate is POISONOUS?!" As many girls hearing this all cried out in horror at that revelation, Rumiko added, "Hell! Knowing you, you blind fool, you'll say next that by accepting chocolate, Ryūnosuke-chan is actually turning into a BOY!" As the girls all shrieked in outrage, the only declared homosexual in Tomobiki High then purred, "Believe me, I KNOW that Ryūnosuke-chan is all _**woman**_ deep down...!"

"Lucky thing that Inazuma-chan and her sisters know that as well."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"You figured out the names?" Ataru asked.

"Well, Himeko and Tsukiko were the easiest to figure out..." Here, Ryūnosuke reached into her carrying box of chocolates to pull out a bottle of Stolíchnaja Strasberí vódka as she winked to the others, earning laughter from all of them. "Himeko-chan sent me this with the Russian chocolates she gave me; that makes her Hibiki. Tsukiko-chan called me an 'elephant lady' in her letter, so I know she's Akatsuki. Inoue-chan actually wrote 'nanodesu' in her letter, so that's Inazuma. That makes Ikue-chan Ikazuchi in the end." She then held up one of the letters. "I still don't get this part Inoue-chan wrote."

"Read it," Chigaiko urged.

The tomboy cleared her throat. "' _I'm really, really, really sad that you still have to live in that school with that meanie, meanie, meanie father of yours and that meanie, meanie, meanie principal who puts you and all your friends through those horrible, horrible, horrible 'physicals' all the time, nanodesu_ ,'" she read in a rough approximation of the childish voice of the fourth of the Akatsuki-class, including her normal sentence ending. As she ignored the gasp from a certain elderly school administrator on hearing himself be called a "meanie" — the Principal had been moving to approach Ataru and upbraid him for what happened to his classmates — Ryūnosuke added, "' _While we can't get you away from those meanie-meanies, we did ask our really, really, really nice friends from Yiziba to provide the right punishment for all the horrible things that happened to you and your friends, nanodesu. They were happy to do that, so all you have to do is point to the meanie-meanie you want to see punished, say "Fifty"..._ '" Here, she pointed at her father as she read that...as the whole school seemed to violently shake for a second.

The whole of Tomobiki then rattled hard thanks to Fujimi's scream as a STORM of cinder-blocks smashed down on him!

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, the Ono Shrine near the Naval District, suppertime...**_

"You are SERIOUS?!"

Ono Haru was trying desperately NOT to turn into her vulpine therianthropic form and laugh her ass off at the revelation her effective spiritual counterpart from Yiziba just made to her. "I am indeed very serious...and no, Haru, that doesn't mean I'm pretending to be little Harry's godfather!" Moroboshi Tariko stated, which made Nagato wince on hearing that stupid joke about Sirius Black's name. "Don't worry about the whole temporal paradox thing! It's unique, but given how the weird scenes always hit that town when Ataru was — or is — living there, it's just seen as going with the script. Besides, anything that puts down those homr'bu umale in that place — ESPECIALLY that thing that runs that..." — here, the Trickster of the Great Show of Life on Yiziba make a disgusted face — "...'school'...!" she croaked out as if she had drunk something very foul-tasting.

"Say no more!" Haru stated as she waved her guest down while she imagined what all the kitsune in Japan would think on hearing of what Tariko had done with the help of Suzumiya Haruhi in that sin-pit called "Tomobiki". "Relax, Kiichi-kun!" she then admonished an ill-looking Gotō Kiichi. "You have to admit, forcing those aliens to back away every once in a while and make them humble is a good thing in the end, especially given with what the current version of Tariko's brother did in July."

Gotō considered that, then he sighed. "True. I just can't wait for the end of April to come around finally."

"You're not the only one, Teitoku," Nagato stated. "Still, the destroyers were briefed about not causing issues in Tomobiki..."

"Reiko, it's a simple thing in the end," Tariko stated. "The little ones need that sweet stuff you give your pillow scene partners on this 'White Day' next storyline! This guarantees they get a DOUBLE serving from Ataru. From the him in Tomobiki..."

"...and the one in _**Taranto**_!" Haru finished.

Both the shrine miko and the reality warper laughed as Gotō and Nagato shook their heads...!

 _ **Happy Valentine's Day!**_

* * *

 **WRITER'S NOTES**

This omake borrows ideas from two of the three _Yatsura_ Valentine's Day manga stories that were published, "Valentine's Deception" (manga chapter #119) and "Valentine For the Love of Father and Son-Daughter" (manga chapter #169); the third story was "The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre" (manga chapter #69). The reason there are so many like-themed stories in _Urusei Yatsura_ was the timelessness of the whole plot; even if realistically all the adventures could cover a three-year period, Takahashi-sensei never set things to a specific timeline. However, the timeline of _The Seventh Shipgirl_ is set to a VERY specific timeline, so there's only one "Valentine's Day" storyline to be printed here based on the _Yatsura_ manga.

Translation list: **Uwabaki** — Indoor shoes; **Weird scenes** — Things that happen that normally can't be explained; **Going with the script** — The Yizibajohei equivalent of the phrase "Going with the flow"; **Homr'bu umale** — Literally "scripted same", these are people who effectively march to a single drummer due to a rigid adherence to social or religious beliefs, which are universally loathed by ALL Yizibajohei; **Pillow scene partners** — One's lover.


End file.
